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16 

AMERICAN LEGION v. AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSN. 

Opinion of the Court 

tions counsel against efforts to evaluate such cases under 
Lemon and toward application of a presumption of consti-
tutionality  for  longstanding  monuments,  symbols,  and 
practices. 

B 
  First, these cases often concern monuments, symbols, or 
practices that were first established long ago, and in such 
cases,  identifying  their  original  purpose  or  purposes  may 
be especially difficult.  In Salazar v. Buono, 559 U. S. 700 
(2010),  for  example,  we  dealt  with  a  cross  that  a  small 
group of World War I veterans had put up at a remote spot 
in  the  Mojave  Desert  more  than  seven  decades  earlier.  
The  record  contained  virtually  no  direct  evidence  regard-
ing  the  specific  motivations  of  these  men.    We  knew  that 
they had selected a plain white cross, and there was some 
evidence that the man who looked after the monument for 
many years—“a miner who had served as a medic and had 
thus  presumably  witnessed  the  carnage  of  the  war 
firsthand”—was  said  not  to  have  been  “particularly  reli-
gious.”  Id., at 724 (ALITO, J., concurring in part and con-
curring in judgment). 
  Without  better  evidence  about  the  purpose  of  the  mon-
ument,  different  Justices  drew  different  inferences.    The 
plurality thought that this particular cross was meant “to 
commemorate  American  servicemen  who  had  died  in 
World  War  I”  and  was  not  intended  “to  promote  a  Chris-
tian  message.”    Id.,  at  715.    The  dissent,  by  contrast, 
“presume[d]”  that  the  cross’s  purpose  “was  a  Christian 
one, at least in part, for the simple reason that those who 
erected  the  cross  chose  to  commemorate  American  veter-
ans in an explicitly Christian manner.”  Id., at 752 (opin-
ion  of  Stevens,  J.).    The  truth  is  that  70  years  after  the 

—————— 

Grendel’s  Den,  Inc.,  459  U.  S.  116  (1982);  Board  of  Ed.  of  Kiryas  Joel 
Village School Dist. v. Grumet,  512 U. S. 687 (1994), might be added.  
We deal here with an issue that falls into the first category.