Liberty Counsel is offering free legal defense to the city of Hiram, Georgia, for its Memorial Day display of 79 wooden white crosses, which were meant to honor 79 fallen local soldiers. The city originally displayed the crosses but, after one person complained recently, hastily took them down the same day.
The city council met on May 24, 2016, and unanimously voted to return the cross display. The city did so the next morning.
In a letter to Hiram Mayor Teresa Philyaw, Liberty Counsel Litigation Attorney Richard L. Mast Jr. said, "Liberty Counsel is aware that the City of Hiram sought to honor 79 fallen service members, all from Paulding County, Georgia, who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces, by means of a roadside Memorial Day display on public property. I understand that the City's display was originally comprised of simple, white, wooden, painted crosses, in the fashion of Latin crosses similar to those marking the grave markers of American graves located on foreign soil throughout the world, which has been permanently granted to the United States. These graves and surrounding lands are administered and maintained by U.S. tax dollars, under the auspices of the American Battle Monuments Commission ("ABMC").
"Liberty Counsel would be pleased to stand alongside the City of Hiram, based on the facts as I understand them, in defense of the Memorial Day display. If a representation agreement is reached, Liberty Counsel will provide such representation at no charge to the taxpayers."
White crosses are a well-known, international symbol that have been used in overseas cemeteries for Americans for decades. In many of the 50 or more cemeteries and memorials across the world, the U.S. government pays for and maintains similar white crosses. Numerous monument and Establishment Clause court cases have upheld displays with similar elements.
"For one person to demand that the city remove the crosses displays a lack of understanding of American history and honor for the lives and deaths of our soldiers. The cross is an international symbol of the graves of American soldiers," said Horatio "Harry" Mihet, Esq., vice president of legal affairs & chief litigation counsel of Liberty Counsel. "We fully support this constitutional display and other similar displays across the country."
Liberty Counsel's letter in support of Hiram's Memorial Day display states, "The Memorial Day display is not an 'establishment of religion,' but it is an appropriate Memorial Day tribute to fallen soldiers and is just as constitutional as the cross-shaped grave markers in any American military cemetery."
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