Honor our troops -- at least some of them

By Capt. Fogg

Yes, sir, I'm glad we have real men like Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court instead of some "activist" liberal pansy. Who but a liberal would come up with the idea that putting a cross on a Jewish (or Muslim or Buddhist or atheist) soldier's grave wouldn't be an insult to the troops we're told to honor and support?

The court is hearing a case on the constitutionality of erecting a cross on government (our) land in order to honor the dead of WWI. It's not really a religious symbol, opined Scalia, but just a common thing to do in cemeteries. In Christian cemeteries, certainly, but here's where Scalia seems unimaginative enough to recognize that many of us, and certainly many of us whose families have been here far longer than his, are not Christians, nor is there an established religion in the U.S., Christian or otherwise.

Crosses never appear in Jewish cemeteries, said the ACLU lawyer, but like the hard-hearted biblical Pharaoh, Scalia could only reply:

I don’t think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that’s an outrageous conclusion.

Well, I don't think it is outrageous, and I imagine there are more than a few people buried in any military cemetery who would, if they could, disagree with him. As Ann Woolner points out at Bloomberg.com:

Hundreds of thousands of non-Christians served in World War I. Jews alone accounted for 250,000, or about 5 percent of the troops deployed. To memorialize them, Muslims and other non- Christians who gave their lives for their country with a Christian cross doesn’t honor them. For many of their families, it insults them.

There is no secular purpose, and therefore no legitimate government purpose, in putting a cross on government property, says the Amicus brief filed by Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America. Of course, that's true, and, in my opinion, as each grave has its own appropriate marker, the only reason to Christianize the entire cemetery is to put a Christian stamp on the U.S. military and all its endeavors and all its men. One would think that the truly devout might say that it puts a U.S. military stamp on Christianity, and indeed some do.

All things considered, I'd rather not have a symbol of a religion (particularly Scalia's) that's been persecuting and vilifying my ancestors since the Constantine administration on my lawn or my grave or the graves of any of my family who have been in the U.S. military for the last 150 years. The party that so often screams about its "freedom" being taken away is usually quite silent when someone else's freedom of religion is being taken away and the honor and dignity of so many of our troops are being trod upon by their fellow Americans.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)