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Buy Photo The fate of Pensacola’s Bayview Park cross now rests with three federal judges after oral arguments were held Wednesday morning in Atlanta in the appeal of last year’s lower federal court ruling ordering the cross be removed from the public park.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, representing the city of Pensacola, appealed the June 2017 ruling that said the cross had to come down because it violated the Establishment Clause, which creates separation of church and state.
The American Humanist Association and the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit against the city in 2016 on behalf of four Pensacola residents who wanted the cross to be removed.
U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson ruled in favor of the groups and ordered the cross to come down in 30 days.
The Becket Fund law firm offered to appeal the ruling for the city for free, and Vinson suspended his order pending the city’s appeal in the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The case drew national attention as 14 states joined the city of Pensacola’s side and filed "friend of the court" briefs supporting the city, and 14 religious and civil rights organizations filed briefs supporting the American Humanist Association and the Freedom From Religion Foundation .
At issue in the case is whether a legal three-prong test known as the Lemon test is still applicable.
The test states a religious display on government-owned property must meet all three of the following factors to be constitutional: there must be a secular purpose for the display, the display cannot advance or inhibit religion and the display must not excessively entangle government with religion.
Monica Miller, an attorney with the American Humanist Association, told the News Journal on Wednesday after the hearing that she argued the court should uphold Vinson’s ruling that the Lemon test still applies in this case."It’s been consistently applied in religious display cases," Miller said. "The Supreme Court’s applied it and other circuit courts have adhered to the Lemon test in other circuit court cases, very recent ones as well."Miller said the Vinson ruling relied on a previous U.S. 11th Circuit Court […]