BATON ROUGE, LA – The United States Supreme Court issued a 7-2 ruling on
Thursday protecting a memorial honoring World War I veterans in Maryland
against a lawsuit aimed at forcing the State to tear down
the historic cross.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry was part of a bipartisan group of 28 Attorneys General who submitted a friend of the court brief, urging the Supreme Court to protect the memorial. Upon hearing the news of the ruling in American Legion v. American Humanist Association, General Landry issued the following statement:
“As a veteran, I stand with millions of others in eternal gratitude and respect for our departed’s military service. Forcing Maryland to remove this veteran’s memorial would have dishonored their sacrifice and created the very divisiveness and hostility toward religion that the Establishment Clause seeks to avoid. I am grateful to the Supreme Court for recognizing this by declaring that ‘destroying or defacing the Cross that has stood undisturbed for nearly a century would not be neutral and would not further the ideals of respect and tolerance embodied in the First Amendment.’ And I am excited this memorial, and hopefully others like it, will continue to honor American heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation.”
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A copy of the brief joined by Louisiana and 27 other states can be viewed at https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/17/17-1717/55791/20180727163146000_M0294970.PDF.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry was part of a bipartisan group of 28 Attorneys General who submitted a friend of the court brief, urging the Supreme Court to protect the memorial. Upon hearing the news of the ruling in American Legion v. American Humanist Association, General Landry issued the following statement:
“As a veteran, I stand with millions of others in eternal gratitude and respect for our departed’s military service. Forcing Maryland to remove this veteran’s memorial would have dishonored their sacrifice and created the very divisiveness and hostility toward religion that the Establishment Clause seeks to avoid. I am grateful to the Supreme Court for recognizing this by declaring that ‘destroying or defacing the Cross that has stood undisturbed for nearly a century would not be neutral and would not further the ideals of respect and tolerance embodied in the First Amendment.’ And I am excited this memorial, and hopefully others like it, will continue to honor American heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation.”
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A copy of the brief joined by Louisiana and 27 other states can be viewed at https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/17/17-1717/55791/20180727163146000_M0294970.PDF.