AROUND THE STATES

Los Angeles County Removes Cross From Seal

Seeking to avoid a First Amendment challenge, Los Angeles County (Calif.) lawmakers have unveiled a new county seal without a Christian cross and a pagan goddess.

In early summer, the Los Angeles County Supervisors voted to remove a small gold cross from the county seal after lawyers said that a lawsuit challenging the seal's incorporation of the religious symbol would likely succeed.

The new seal, the Religion News Service reported on Sept. 10, replaces the cross with an image of San Gabriel Mission without a visible cross. Pomona, goddess of fruit trees, was replaced with a depiction of a Native American woman holding a basket.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which had threatened to sue the county over the seal, said it was pleased with the revised version.

"As far was we're concerned, they could have satisfied their legal obligation by simply removing the cross," said ACLU attorney Ben Wizner. "But they went a step further and tried to devise a symbol that would really reflect the diversity of the county."

L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antovich, a supporter of the original seal, said he would continue to fight for the original seal's reinstatement.

Appeals Court Upholds Native American Medicine Wheel

A federal appeals court ruled in September that a logging company did not have grounds to challenge government regulations preserving for religious purposes a site in Bighorn National Forest that is sacred to Native Americans.

A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Wyoming Sawmills v. United States Forest Service that the logging company failed to show how its First Amendment rights had been subverted by the Forest Service's management of Medicine Wheel, which is a stone circle sacred to several Native American tribes located on Medicine Mountain in the national forest in north central Wyoming.

The Medicine Wheel was made a national historic landmark in 1969 to preserve the prehistoric stone circle, which is about 80 feet in diameter, and the Forest Service oversees the landmark to "ensure that the Medicine Wheel and Medicine Mountain are managed in a manner that protects the integrity of the site as a sacred site and a nationally important traditional cultural property."

The Wyoming logging company, which has been the primary purchaser of timber from the Bighorn Forest for more than 30 years, sued the Forest Service arguing that its management decisions violated church-state separation. The logging company's lawsuit also complained of economic damage resulting from restricted logging in the area surrounding medicine wheel.

"As an artificial person, plaintiff has not shown how it experienced the kind of constitutional injury that has been found in such cases," the 10th Circuit ruled. "Instead, its arguments repeatedly refer to and rely on the alleged economic injury."

Tennessee Church Fights State Day Care Regulation

A Baptist church near Nashville is fighting a state judge's orders to stop operating an unlicensed day care program.

On Sept. 7, Chancery Court Judge Claudia Bonnyman found Pastor Harold Frelix Sr. and his Priest Lake Community Baptist Church in contempt of court for refusing to abide an earlier court order to stop operating child-care services without a license.

State law requires anyone caring for five or more unrelated children to be licensed by the state. Day care centers must meet basic health and safety regulations, and staff members must undergo criminal background checks and receive training related to childcare. Earlier this year, officials with the state Department of Human Services stated that on numerous occasions they had found that the church was caring for 13 children.

Church officials told The Tennessean that it merely runs a "Bible camp" and that the free exercise of religion should shield the church from compliance with the state's regulations.

Bonnyman also said she would consider ordering the church to pay DHS attorney fees if it continued to defy the order.

As Church & State went to press, there were no reports on whether the church had stopped its day care services.

Copyright Americans United for Separation of Church and State Nov 2004
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