Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-1717_4f14.pdf
Page Number: 79.0

Cite as:  588 U. S. ____ (2019) 

13 

GINSBURG,  J., dissenting 

rary  sectarian  markers  with  plain  marble  slabs  resem-
bling  “those  designed for the national cemeteries in the 
United  States.”    Van  Duyne,  Erection  of  Permanent  
Headstones  in  the  American  Military  Cemeteries  in  
Europe, The Quartermaster Review (1930) (Quartermaster 
Report). 
  The War Department’s recommendation angered promi-
nent  civil  organizations,  including the American Legion 
and  the  Gold  Star  associations:  the  United States, they 
urged,  ought  to retain both the cross and Star of David.  
See ibid.; Budreau, supra, at 123.  In supporting sectarian 
markers, these groups were joined by the American Battle 
Monuments Commission (ABMC), a newly created inde-
pendent  agency  charged with supervising the establish-
ment of overseas cemeteries.  ABMC Report 57.  Congress 
weighed  in  by  directing  the  War  Department  to  erect 
headstones “of such design and material as may be agreed 
upon  by  the  Secretary  of  War  and  the  American Battle 
Monuments Commission.”  Ibid. (internal quotation marks 
omitted).    In  1924,  the  War  Department  approved  the 
ABMC’s  “designs  for  a Cross and Star of David.”  Quar-
termaster Report; ABMC Report 57.12 
  Throughout the headstone debate, no one doubted that 
the  Latin  cross  and  the  Star  of  David  were  sectarian 
gravemarkers, and therefore appropriate only for soldiers 
who adhered to those faiths.  A committee convened by the 
War Department composed of representatives from “seven 
prominent  war-time  organizations” as well as “religious 
bodies, Protestant, Jewish, [and] Catholic” agreed “unan-
imous[ly] . . . that marble crosses be placed on the graves 
of  all  Christian  American  dead  buried  abroad, and that 
the graves of the Jewish American dead be marked by the 
six-pointed star.”  Durable Markers in the Form of Crosses 

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12 A  photograph  depicting  the  two  headstones  is  reproduced  in  the 

Appendix, infra, at 21.