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Page Number: 52.0

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AMERICAN LEGION  v. AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSN. 

THOMAS,  J., concurring  in judgment 
THOMAS,  J., concurring  in judgment 

  Here, respondents briefly suggest that the government’s 
spending  their  tax  dollars  on  maintaining  the  Bladens-
burg Cross represents coercion, but they have not demon-
strated  that  maintaining  a  religious  display  on  public 
property shares any of the historical characteristics of an 
establishment of religion.  The local commission has not 
attempted to control religious doctrine or personnel, com-
pel religious observance, single out a particular religious 
denomination for exclusive state subsidization, or punish 
dissenting  worship.    Instead,  the  commission  has  done 
something  that  the  founding  generation,  as  well  as  the 
generation  that  ratified  the  Fourteenth  Amendment, 
would  have  found  commonplace:  displaying  a  religious 
symbol  on  government  property.    See  Brief  for  Becket 
Fund  for  Religious  Liberty  as  Amicus  Curiae  14–22.  
Lacking  any  characteristics of “the coercive state estab-
lishments that existed at the founding,” Town of Greece, 
572 U. S., at 608 (opinion of THOMAS, J.), the Bladensburg 
Cross is constitutional. 
  The  Bladensburg  Cross  is  constitutional  even  though 
the cross has religious significance as a central symbol of 
Christianity.  Respondents’ primary contention is that this 
characteristic of the Cross makes it “sectarian”—a word 
used  in  respondents’  brief  more than 40 times.  Putting 
aside  the  fact  that  Christianity is not a “sect,” religious 
displays  or  speech  need  not be  limited  to  that  which  a 
“judge considers to be nonsectarian.”  Id., at 582 (majority 
opinion).  As the Court has explained, “[a]n insistence on 
nonsectarian”  religious  speech  is  inconsistent  with  our 
Nation’s history and traditions.  Id., at 578–580; see id., at 
595  (ALITO,  J.,  concurring).    Moreover,  requiring  that 
—————— 

that the salient characteristics of an establishment changed by the time 
of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  see  Town  of  Greece  v.  Galloway,  572 
U. S.  565,  607,  609–610  (2014)  (THOMAS,  J.,  concurring  in  part  and 
concurring  in  judgment),  but  respondents  have  presented  no  evidence 
suggesting so.