When the government endorses religion, that violates the Establishment Clause and should be prohibited. Displays of crucifixes, especially in a city seal, could very well be construed as a governmental endorsement of the christian faith. When government uses a religious symbol to try and cram that religion down the citizens’ throats, that violates the Establishment Clause.
However, when there is a legitimate historical reason for a religious display, that doesn’t offend the Establishment Clause.
Weinbaum and Boyd filed suit against the City of Las Cruces, New Mexico because the city used a symbol that contained three crucifixes. “Las Cruces” means “The Crosses” in Spanish. The court held:
Las Cruces’s unique name and history and the record in this case adequately establish according to requisite standards that the City and District’s challenged symbols were not intended to endorse christianity and do not have the effect of doing so. (source at 5)
The 10th gives us this summary of the evidence in coming to its conclusion:
Compelling evidence here establishes that the symbolism is not religious at all. Rather, it simply reflects the name of the City which, in turn, reflects a series of secular events that occurred near the site of the City. Unless one were to attack the very name of the City itself – an attack which is not advanced here – it is hardly startling that a City with the name “The Crosses” would be represented by a seal containing crosses. And indisputable evidence showed that even the name of the City reflected merely the cemetery, representing the violence in the area rather than proselytizing forces in general or a particular faith. So here, unlike in Robinson or Friedman, we have a secular symbol, which could be, and was, understood to be secular by the residents of the City. (source at 32)
As noted above, I am quite hostile to communities that try to force christianity (or any other religion) down the throats of innocent non-believers. However, we must leave room in our society for the proper use of religious symbolism, when that symbolism is merely historical or incidental to proper purposes — and it passes the Lemon test.
In Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), the supreme court gave us a three-part test to determine whether governmental conduct violates the Establishment Clause: (1) it must have a secular purpose, (2) the government action must have a principal or primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion, and (3) the government action may not foster an excessive governmental entanglement with religion.
Using this innocuous symbol as a nod to history, and not as an attempt to exclude non-christians clearly passed Lemon muster.
