The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging a Georgia courthouse to stop flying a Christian flag.
A very obviously Christian religious flag with a cross on top is prominently on display next to the judge’s bench in a Bryan County courtroom. The flag is a traditional Christian design, reportedly conceptualized by Protestants in the early 20th century. The white in the flag is said to represent the biblical notions of purity, the blue is supposed to stand for baptism in water and the red is meant to symbolize the sacrifice that Jesus made for mankind.
The religious significance of the cross and the flag is indisputable, and FFRF urges that the flag be removed immediately.
“An overwhelming majority of federal courts agree that the Latin cross universally represents the Christian religion, and only the Christian religion,” FFRF Staff Attorney Elizabeth Cavell writes to Rebecca Crowe, Bryan County clerk of courts. “And a majority of federal courts have held displays of Latin crosses on public property to be an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.”
The cross and the flag display in the Bryan County courthouses unabashedly creates the perception of government endorsement of Christianity, FFRF asserts. Plus, it sends a message to the nearly 30 percent of non-Christians (including the one-fourth of the population that is religiously unaffiliated) that they are not “favored members of the political community,” to quote the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Such a blatant endorsement of religion and Christianity has no place in our secular courtrooms,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “The flag needs to be gotten rid of at once.”
It sends a theocratic message of intimidation to non-Christians and a message of favoritism to Christians that contradicts the judicial notion of justice for all.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a nationwide nonprofit organization dedicated to the separation of state and church, with almost 24,000 nonreligious members across the country, including more than 400 in Georgia and an Atlanta-area chapter.
