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Page Number: 17

10 

AMERICAN LEGION v. AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSN. 

Opinion of the Court 

Clause  of  the  First  Amendment.    Id.,  at  1443–1451.    The 
AHA, along with three residents of Washington, D. C., and 
Maryland, also sued the Commission in the District Court 
for the District of Maryland, making the same claim.  The 
AHA  sought  declaratory  and  injunctive  relief  requiring 
“removal  or  demolition  of  the  Cross,  or  removal  of  the 
arms  from  the  Cross  to  form  a  non-religious  slab  or  obe-
lisk.”  874 F. 3d 195, 202, n. 7 (CA4 2017) (internal quota-
tion  marks  omitted).    The  American  Legion  intervened to 
defend the Cross. 
  The  District  Court  granted  summary  judgment  for  the 
Commission  and  the  American  Legion.    The  Cross,  the 
District  Court  held,  satisfies  both  the  three-pronged  test 
announced  in  Lemon  v.  Kurtzman,  403  U. S.  602  (1971), 
and the analysis applied by JUSTICE BREYER in upholding 
the Ten Commandments monument at issue in Van Orden 
v.  Perry,  545  U. S.  677.    Under  the  Lemon  test,  a  court 
must ask whether a challenged government action (1) has 
a  secular  purpose;  (2)  has  a  “principal  or  primary  effect” 
that  “neither  advances nor  inhibits  religion”;  and  (3) does 
not  foster  “an  excessive  government  entanglement  with 
religion,” 403 U. S., at 612–613 (internal quotation marks 
omitted).    Applying  that  test,  the  District  Court  deter-
mined  that  the  Commission  had  secular  purposes  for 
acquiring  and  maintaining  the  Cross—namely,  to  com-
memorate  World  War  I  and  to  ensure  traffic  safety.    The 
court  also  found  that  a  reasonable  observer  aware  of  the 
Cross’s  history,  setting,  and  secular  elements  “would  not 
view the Monument as having the effect of impermissibly 
endorsing  religion.”  147  F. Supp.  3d  373,  387  (Md.  2015).  
Nor, according to the court, did the Commission’s mainte-
nance  of  the  memorial  create  the  kind  of  “continued  and 
repeated  government  involvement  with  religion”  that 
would constitute an excessive entanglement.  Ibid. (inter-
nal  quotation  marks  and  emphasis  omitted).    Finally,  in 
light  of  the  factors  that  informed  its  analysis  of  Lemon’s 
“effects”  prong,  the  court  concluded  that  the  Cross  is