CNS News - Legal Groups Battle Over Cross For Hurricane Katrina Monument

August 14, 2006

By Kate Monaghan
CNSNews.com Correspondent

(CNSNews.com) - A Louisiana parish planning to erect a cross on the bank of the Mississippi River in memory of the 130 people who died from Hurricane Katrina insists it is not violating the Constitution despite a challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union.

St. Bernard Parish Councilman Mark Madary believes the ACLU is trying to create a controversy to generate publicity, rather than attempting to protect Americans' First Amendment rights.

"We're not using government funds for the erection of the cross and we're not using public property for it," Madary told Cybercast News Service, "so I think it was just ACLU's way of staying in the press."

The memorial, a stainless steel cross bearing an artist's rendition of the face of Jesus, is being built on the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a channel created by the federal government to provide a more direct route between New Orleans' inner harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Madary blamed the channel for redirecting Katrina's floodwaters into the parish.

"It's been erected where ... the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet was cut across solid land in St Bernard Parish to create a channel that brought [in] flood waters and flooded their homes," Madary explained. "We thought the location seemed appropriate."

In a July 28 letter, the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU-LA) asked St. Bernard Parish to either build a "religiously neutral monument" or move the cross to "private property."

"The Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet is government property," ACLU-LA Executive Director Joe Cook's letter claimed, "and as such, the government-sponsored erection of the crucifix [sic] would be a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution."

The "Establishment Clause" of the First Amendment states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." The language has been used by some courts to prohibit religiously-themed displays on public property.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, told Cybercast News Service that St. Bernard Parish believes the proposed site for the monument is already on private property.

"The ACLU is completely wrong on this. If they would have looked at the facts, it's absurd. This is a privately displayed, privately funded cross that raises no constitutional issue whatsoever," Sekulow said. "The fact that the city will grant a construction permit for it doesn't constitute a constitutional violation by any stretch of the imagination."

St. Bernard Parish officials concede that the monument will be very near the dividing line between public and private property, but they insist that it is on private property. Madary said he and other parish council members also view the private funding of the memorial as a bonus.

"You can trust if the government gets involved, your project [will be] stretched out [and it] could take years." Madary said, "But if it's private, it could take just days."

Sekulow believes the ACLU's objection to this and other similar monuments is trampling, rather than protecting First Amendment rights.

"I think the ACLU really believes that they can and should remove every vestige of religious heritage that exists in the United States," Sekulow said. "I think the ACLU thinks somehow that this is defending liberty when in fact they're suppressing it."

Multiple calls to both the national and Louisiana offices of the ACLU seeking comment for this report were not returned.