Law Offices of David G. Arganian, Seattle, WA

High court avoids dispute over highway crosses

The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal of a ruling that 12-foot-high crosses along Utah highways in honor of dead state troopers violate the Constitution.

The justices Monday rejected an appeal from Utah and a state troopers' group that wanted the court to throwing out the ruling and take a more permissive view of religious symbols on public land.

Since 1998, the private Utah Highway Patrol Association has paid for and erected more than a dozen memorial crosses, most of them on state land. Texas-based American Atheists Inc. and three of its Utah members sued the state in 2005.

The federal appeals court in Denver said the crosses were an unconstitutional endorsement of Christianity by the Utah state government.





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