Court Opinion

ID: 9482196
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:43:07.361926+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:49.649427
License: Public Domain

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
They say hard cases make bad law — this is a hard case. The Austin insignia has existed without protest for the better part of this century. No one alleges that Austin is poised to establish a church of its own or that it is intentionally injecting religion into the mainstream of city life. But that some can glean no glaring harm from the inclusion of a Christian cross on the city’s insignia makes its appearance there no less blinding on the constitutional spectrophotometer. The threat that lurks is no shadow. The Austin insignia presents as real a danger to the Establishment Clause as did the creche in Allegheny, the seals in Harris and Friedman, and the crosses in St. Charles, Mendelson, and Rabun. I respectfully dissent.
I.
Anyone reading Establishment Clause precedent — the cases on non-purposeful, symbolic government support for religion — cannot help but be struck by the confusion that reigns in this area. The leading case, the Supreme Court’s recent decision on creches, menorahs, and other Christmastime displays, County of Allgheny v. ACLU Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U.S. 573, 109 S.Ct. 3086, 106 L.Ed.2d 472 (1989), is a confusing matrix composed largely of minority opinions that reach contradictory results and focus on the minutiae of scenic design and physical arrangement. See generally The Supreme Court — Leading Cases, 103 Harv.L.Rev. 137, 228-39 (1989). Forthright commentators and jurists (Justice Kennedy and Judge Easterbrook come to mind) have justifiably criticized the arbitrary and inconsistent line-drawing sometimes required by Allegheny and other cases.
Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to suppose that all lines drawn in this area are equally arbitrary or that confusion is the order of the day whenever an Establishment Clause issue arises. On the contrary, areas of stable consensus have emerged. For example, judicial approval has been consistent for such secularized and timeworn practices as the coining of money with the phrase “In God We Trust” and the opening of legislative and judicial sessions with prayer or other invocations of the Deity. Although some argue that these practices are incompatible even with recent Establishment Clause jurisprudence, the margin of approval has remained quite wide.
Equally constant has been judicial disapproval of government use of Christian crosses and, independently, of religious imagery of any sort on municipal seals. No federal court has sustained government use of a cross in any context or any form of religious symbolism appearing on a municipal seal. The Supreme Court itself has repeatedly disapproved in dicta the governmental display of crosses, and at least three Justices have expressed apparent approval of one of the circuit cases, which held that a cross within the seal violated the Establishment Clause. See Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3120 (O’Connor, J., joined by Brennan and Stevens, JJ., concurring in part and in the judgment) (citing Friedman v. Board of County Commrs. of Bernalillo County, 781 F.2d 777 (10th Cir.1985)).
The decisions in the cross and the seal cases have been founded on two observa*164tions. First, courts have repeatedly emphasized that the cross is and remains a religiously-charged symbol — indeed, not a symbol of religion generally, but of one particular sect. As the opinions elaborate, the cross is an emblem of Christianity’s origins and history, possessing an emotional power of great dimension. Second, courts have recognized that a municipal seal quite literally puts the government imprimatur on whatever it touches and, by implication, whatever it includes in its design. As definitively as a trademark, a city’s seal encapsulates its municipal identity, history, and authority; inescapably, it exudes endorsement and approval of the aspects of municipal life represented by its elements.
These two observations have been the basis for two unswerving lines of authority resulting in the disapproval or apparent abandonment of the challenged crosses or municipal seals. These lines have twice intersected in cases like the present one, in which the challenged object is a government seal containing a cross. In both cases, the Courts of Appeal have roundly condemned the challenged seals and enjoined their use. Harris v. City of Zion, 927 F.2d 1401 (7th Cir.1991); Friedman v. Board of County Commrs. of Bernalillo County, 781 F.2d 777 (10th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1169, 106 S.Ct. 2890, 90 L.Ed.2d 978 (1986).
II.
Among the requirements imposed by the Establishment Clause is that the “principal or primary effect [of a government action] must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion.” Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 2111, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971) (citation omitted). Adopting an approach first posited by Justice O’Connor, the Supreme Court has “refined” — or perhaps transformed — this requirement into a non-endorsement principle: the Establishment Clause “prohibits government from appearing to take a position on questions of religious belief or from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person’s standing in the political community.” Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3101;. see also id. at 3119 (O’Connor, J., joined by Brennan and Stevens, JJ., concurring in part and in the judgment); id. at 3124 (Brennan, J., joined by Marshall and Stevens, JJ., concurring in part and dissenting in part). This “prohibition against governmental endorsement of religion preclude^] government from conveying ... a message that religion or a particular religious belief is favored or preferred.” Id. at 3101 (internal quotations, citations, and emphasis omitted; brackets in original). Likewise, the government may not “promote” religion; “[w]hether the key word is ‘endorsement,’ ‘favoritism’ or ‘promotion,’ the essential principle remains the same.” Id.; see also Ball, 473 U.S. at 390, 105 S.Ct. at 3226 (inquiry is “whether the symbolic union of church and state effected by the challenged governmental action is sufficiently likely to be perceived by adherents of the controlling denominations as an endorsement, and by the nonadherents as a disapproval, of their individual religious choices.”); Larkin v. Grendel’s Den, 459 U.S. 116, 125-26, 103 S.Ct. 505, 511-12, 74 L.Ed.2d 297 (1982) (disapproving a statute that “provide[d] a significant symbolic benefit to religion in the minds of some”).
Furthermore, the fact that government may not intend to promote religion does not legitimize the government’s embracement of a religious activity; the constitutional evil is complete even when government merely “appear[s] to take a position on questions of religious belief,” Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3101 (emphasis added), or when it “makes[s] religion relevant, in reality or public perception, to status in the political community.” Id. at 3119 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (emphasis added); see also Harris, 927 F.2d at 1415 (similar, citing Friedman, 781 F.2d at 781). This is true “irrespective of government’s actual purpose.” Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 690, 104 S.Ct. 1355, 1368, 79 L.Ed.2d 604 (1984) (O’Connor, J., concurring). In short, a governmental practice is impermissible if it “either has the purpose or effect of endorsing religion.” Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3100 (emphasis added; internal quotations omitted).
Courts conduct the endorsement inquiry from the standpoint of a “reasonable ob*165server.” See Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3115 (Blackmun, J.), 3121 (O’Connor, J., joined by Brennan and Stevens, JJ., concurring in part and in the judgment), 3127 (Brennan, J., joined by Marshall and Stevens, JJ., concurring in part and dissenting in part); see also The Supreme Court — Leading Cases, 103 Harv.L.Rev. at 234 n. 44. The reasonable observer is one who is particularly sensitive to the message that the challenged symbol may convey to those who do not adhere to the religion associated with that symbol. As Justice Kennedy summarized the endorsement test, “the touchstone of an Establishment Clause violation is whether nonadherents would be made to feel like ‘outsiders’ by government recognition or accommodation of religion.” Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3142 (Kennedy, J., joined by Rehnquist, C.J., and White and Scalia, JJ., concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part); see also id., 109 S.Ct. at 3119 (O’Connor, J., joined by Brennan and Stevens, JJ., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (“[T]he endorsement test captures the essential command of the Establishment Clause ... government cannot endorse the religious practices and beliefs of some citizens without sending a clear message to nonadherents that they are outsiders or less than full members of the political community.”).
That the endorsement inquiry stresses the nonadherents’ viewpoint is scarcely surprising. The first amendment prohibition against “law[s] respecting an establishment of religion” clearly benefits the minority, not those whose religions might otherwise receive government endorsement. Indeed, the Religion Clauses would have little purpose if interpreted principally from the standpoint of majorities already well-protected by the political process. Ma-joritarian adherents, construing a government action devoid of religious purpose, may not perceive the endorsement message that the minority receives with stinging clarity. Only through sensitivity to the nonadherent can we effect the constitutional values inherent in the Religion Clauses. Cf. Ellison v. Brady, 924 F.2d 872, 878-80 (9th Cir.1991) (adopting perspective of “reasonable woman” in order to effect statutory aim of sex discrimination statute). Yet, by insisting that the test be an objective one — a “reasonable nonadherent” test — the endorsement inquiry retains the ability to discount the perceptions of a hypersensitive plaintiff.
By including a Latin cross in its insignia, the City of Austin has conveyed to the reasonable nonadherent, albeit unintentionally, that it endorses the Christian faith. A fact-intensive scrutiny of the nature of the challenged symbol and the context in which it appears proves this point. See Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3103; Harris, 927 F.2d at 1412 & n. 11; 103 Harv.L.Rev. at 230.
A.
The cross is the paradigmatically Christian symbol — “the principal and unmistakable symbol of Christianity as practiced in this country today,” Harris, 927 F.2d at 1403 (citing St. Charles, 794 F.2d at 267 (Posner, J.)) — as recognizably emblematic of that creed’s two-thousand year history as the flag is of our “two hundred years of nationhood.” Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 603, 94 S.Ct. 1242, 1262, 39 L.Ed.2d 605 (1974) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); see also Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 109 S.Ct. 2533, 2548, 2552, 105 L.Ed.2d 342 (1989) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (flag burning case). It symbolizes a singular event in the origin of the Christian faith, the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ, as surely as Old Glory, with it's thirteen stripes, symbolizes the founding of our nation. The Supreme Court has described the Christian cross in terms that leave no doubt as to its power:
Symbolism is a primitive but effective way of conveying ideas. The use of an emblem or flag to symbolize some system, idea, institution, or personality, is a short cut from mind to mind. Causes and nations, political parties, lodges and ecclesiastical groups seek to knit the loyalty of their followings to a flag or banner, a color or design. The State announces rank, function, and authority through crowns and maces, uniforms and black robes; the church speaks through the Cross, the Crucifix, the altar and *166shrine, and clerical raiment. Symbols of State often convey political ideas just as religious symbols come to convey theological ones.
West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 632, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 1182, 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943), quoted in part in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 109 S.Ct. 2533, 2539, 105 L.Ed.2d 342 (1989); see also Greater Houston Chapter of ACLU v. Eckels, 589 F.Supp. 222, 234 (S.D.Tex.1984) (cross is “primary symbol[ ] for Christianity”), appeal dismissed, 755 F.2d 426 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 980, 106 S.Ct. 383, 88 L.Ed.2d 336 (1985); Hewitt v. Joyner, 70S F.Supp. 1443, 1449 (C.D.Cal.1989) (“preeminent symbol”), judgment reversed, 940 F.2d 1561, 1568 (9th Cir.1991) (holding that park display of immovable statuary depicting scenes from the New Testament violated the California constitution’s establishment clause provision).
As inspirational a symbol as the cross may be to Christians, its effect on non-Christians is likely to be quite different. As the Supreme Court observed with regard to symbols generally, “what is one [personj’s comfort and inspiration is another’s jest and scorn.” Barnette, 319 U.S. at 633, 63 S.Ct. at 1183. A cross may, at the very least, “stand[ ] as a dramatic reminder [to nonbelievers] of their differences with Christian faith.” Lynch, 465 U.S. at 708 & n. 14, 104 S.Ct. at 1377 & n. 14 (Brennan, J., dissenting). Indeed, “[t]he effect on minority religious groups, as well as on those who may reject all religion, is to convey the message that their views are not worthy of public recognition nor entitled to public support.” Id. at 701, 104 S.Ct. at 1374 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (footnote omitted). More grimly, the Tenth Circuit has explained that the cross carries with it a strong message, for it has
at times symbolized outright oppression and persecution of Jewish people. It cannot be denied ... that the cross probably would have a similarly threatening connotation for a Lebanese Moslem or Northern Irish Protestant. We are compelled to draw the same conclusion with regard to the reactions of Native Americans .... The seal certainly does not memorialize their “Christian heritage” but rather that of those who sought to extinguish their culture and religion.
Friedman, 781 F.2d at 781-82. The Seventh Circuit has reminded us that
The crosses burned by the Klu Klux Klan are Latin crosses; and the burning cross, symbol of bigotry that it is, continues to remind of the Christian symbol that the Klan has appropriated to its sinister purposes. The ... cross unmistakably signifies Christianity, as the reindeer and Santa Claus, and even the star and the wreath, do not.
ACLU v. City of St. Charles, 794 F.2d 265, 273 (7th Cir.1986).
One would be hard-pressed to reconcile so religiously-fraught a symbol with the Establishment Clause, and, apparently, no federal case has done so. Whether planted on mountains, lit up on broadcasting antennas, erected at memorial sites and city parks, painted on water towers, affixed to government buildings, or, indeed, displayed on municipal seals, state-sponsored crosses — even where barely recognizable as such — have fallen in the wake of federal court challenges. See e.g., Harris, 927 F.2d at 1414-15 (striking down seal); Friedman, 781 F.2d at 781-82 (same); St. Charles, 794 F.2d at 273 (enjoining display of cross on city building) (collecting cases); Mendelson v. City of St. Cloud, 719 F.Supp. 1065, 1069 (M.D.Fla.1989) (holding that permanent display of cross on city water tower was unconstitutional: “no federal case has ever found the display of a Latin cross on public land by a state or state subdivision to be constitutional”) (collecting cases); Jewish War Veterans of United States v. United States, 695 F.Supp. 3, 11-15 (D.D.C.1988) (holding,that cross could not be used as memorial to servicemen missing in action) (collecting cases); ACLU of Georgia v. Rabun County, 698 F.2d 1098, 1110 n. 23 (11th Cir.1983) (upholding district court’s ruling that display of cross in state park violated each prong of Lemon test) (collecting cases). But cf. St. Charles, 794 F.2d at 274 (collecting state cases allowing crosses to be *167displayed in contexts other than a city seal); Rabun, 698 F.2d at 1110 n. 23 (same).
Even the Supreme Court, in dicta, has spoken with a single, disapproving voice on this issue. See Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3104 (Blackmun, J.) (majority opinion), 3120 (O’Connor, J., joined by Brennan and Stevens, JJ.) (citing Friedman with apparent approval), 3126 n. * (Brennan, J., joined by Marshall and Stevens, JJ.) (display of cross next to an Easter bunny used as example of display unlikely to “comport with Justice O’Connor’s views”), 3132 (Stevens, J., joined by Brennan and Marshall, JJ.), 3137 (Kennedy, J., joined by Rehnquist, C.J. and White and Scalia, JJ.); Lynch, 465 U.S. at 695 & n. 1, 104 S.Ct. at 1370 & n. 1 (Brennan, J., joined by Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens, JJ.), at 701 n. 7, 104 S.Ct. at 1374 n. 7 (citing with approval California case disallowing erection of cross in front of city hall).
Several years ago, in a decision we let stand on procedural grounds, one of our own district courts ordered the removal of “three Latin-style crosses and a Star of David” from a county veterans’ memorial. Greater Houston Chapter of ACLU v. Eckels, 589 F.Supp. 222, 241 (S.D.Tex.1984) (decided on grounds of both religious purpose and effect), appeal dismissed, 755 F.2d 426 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 980, 106 S.Ct. 383, 88 L.Ed.2d 336 (1985). Most recently, the Seventh Circuit enjoined the use of a city seal containing a barely-distinguishable cross. Harris, 927 F.2d 1401. Were he to reach the merits, even the panel’s dissenter, Judge Easterbrook, would have “condemned]” the seal. Harris, 927 F.2d at 1425 (Easterbrook, J., dissenting on other grounds) (condemning seal even though “[t]he object of everyone’s attention looks more like a telephone pole than a cross; its arms are too short to crucify anyone.”). The cases are unambiguous: a cross displayed by the government is too emphatically sectarian a symbol to survive Establishment Clause scrutiny.
B.
The context in which the cross appears in this case makes matters only worse. Context encompasses three distinct aspects of the cross’s presentation: its setting, its arrangement in relation to other elements in the setting, and its temporal “location” and duration. Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3103-04.
The setting of this cross is, of course, the city insignia. Just as a cross is emblematic of the Christian religion, so too, the city insignia is emblematic of the City of Austin. The evidence establishes that the Austin insignia is pervasive; it appears on letterhead, utility bills, uniforms, vehicles, buildings, at outdoor sites and in the chambers of the City’s representative government. Wherever the City wants its mark, the insignia is the mark it makes. The insignia, although lacking the transcendent power of a cross or national flag, is nonetheless the city’s trademark, the symbol of its corporate existence, historical roots, and municipal authority. Austin’s insignia “acts as the City’s imprimatur for official correspondence, property and business.” See Harris, 927 F.2d at 1412.
With this background, it is not surprising that every federal challenge to religious imagery of any sort on a city insignia has succeeded. Whether the religious element is a cross, a temple, or a word or phrase, its presence on a municipal insignia has been followed by its removal. As the Harris court explained:
[T]he obvious presence of a Latin cross on the corporate seal of [a city] ... endorses or promotes a particular religious faith. It expresses an unambiguous choice in favor of Christianity. It presents to any observer a clear endorsement of all those beliefs associated with a Latin cross in violation of the Establishment Clause of the first amendment.
Like the seat of county government in County of Allegheny, or the City Hall Building in American Jewish Congress [v. City of Chicago, 827 F.2d 120 (7th Cir.1987) ], the corporate seal of a municipality is “plainly under government control ... (and is) a clear symbol of government power.” ... The Latin cross on the seal, then, brings together church and state in a manner that suggests their *168alliance perhaps even more ardently than the unconstitutional creche displays in County of Allegheny or American Jewish Congress_ The conspicuous depiction of the pre-eminent symbol of a particular faith on that seal conveys a message of approval that is simply inconsistent with the first amendment.
Harris, 927 F.2d at 1412. Like the creche invalidated in Allegheny, “[n]o viewer could reasonably think” that the cross occupies so central a location on the seal “without the support and approval of the government.” Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3104 (majority opinion).
The second element of context is what might be called “arrangement,” meaning the placement and effect of the elements of the challenged display. Two principles have emerged from recent cases. The first is that neutral objects surrounding a religious symbol may have the effect of “framing” the symbol, making it more visible and its religious message more prominent. Thus, “[t]he floral decoration surrounding the [.Allegheny ] creche ... [is a] frame ... [which] serves only to draw one’s attention to the message inside the frame”; it “contributes to, rather than detracts from, the endorsement of religion conveyed by the creche.” Id.
The cross on Austin’s insignia is framed by objects that serve to “draw one’s attention to the message inside the frame.” Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3104 (majority opinion). Most literally, the cross is framed by a pair of wings. Equally effective is the arrangement of the light stripe and the lamp of knowledge, which draw the viewer’s attention to the cross. The insignia’s contrasting colors have a similar effect.
The second principle emerging from the Supreme Court analysis of physical arrangement is that, in holiday displays, the nonreligious meaning of a religious object may be enhanced by the placement of other objects appropriate to the season, at least so long as such objects have their “own focal pointfs]” and “specific visual stor[ies] to tell.” Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3104. Thus, explained the Court, the Santa Claus and “talking wishing well” in Lynch rendered a creche acceptable by tying it to the secular aspects of the Christmas season. Id. at 3103-04; see also id. at 3112. This secularizing effect, which might ameliorate what would otherwise be a constitutional violation, does not occur in the Austin insignia. True, the insignia does include other symbolic elements, specifically the capí-tol building and the lamp. But these elements relate to no holiday and share no meaning in common with the cross other than their representation of institutions within the city. Under Allegheny, such mere coexistence is inadequate to secularize the cross. Id. at 3103-04.
Nor is the cross's message muted by its presence in a secular venue, the insignia, itself. See Harris, 927 F.2d at 1425 (Easterbrook, J., dissenting on other grounds) (“Governance is not a ‘context’ that drains the significance of a religious image.”) (discussing presence of cross and secular elements on city seal); see also Eckels, 589 F.Supp. at 235 (message conveyed by cross is “purely religious” and is “not lost when [it is] removed from the churches ... with which it is traditionally associated”). In this respect, a city insignia is quite unlike, for example, a county art museum, whose essential nature as a neutral showplace does tend to negate a message of endorsement of any religious paintings displayed there. See Lynch, 465 U.S. at 692, 104 S.Ct. at 1369 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (describing how museum context negates endorsement message); Hewitt v. Joyner, 940 F.2d 1561, 1568 (9th Cir.1991) (same). A municipal insignia, unlike a municipal museum, is neither intended nor understood as a neutral presentation of diverse images for the viewer’s edification and amusement, any more than Old Glory serves as a trifling display of stripes and stars.
The lamp and capítol building, far from secularizing the cross, actually enhance the impact of its religious message. Like the Rolling Meadows seal rejected in Harris, Austin’s insignia is no mere catalog of “neutral snapshots of the community”; rather, the images on the insignia “are charged with endorsement.” Harris, 927 *169F.2d at 1412. Who could sensibly assume that the City’s leaders have a neutral attitude towards the presence of the state capí-tol, or that they are indifferent to “the educational advantages of the city?” Its insignia contains a Christian cross superimposed over a silhouette of the state capítol building and placed above a lamp representing Austin’s schools and universities, the two most significant institutions in the City. The lamp and capítol epitomize the City’s municipal identity; the glow of governmental endorsement with which they are surrounded bathes the cross as well. To any reasonable observer, Austin’s insignia “expresses the City’s approval of those [three] pictures of City life— ... its schools,” its role in state governance, “and its Christianity.” Harris, 927 F.2d at 1412.
The final element of context is temporal: when does the government display occur and for how long? In the case of the Allegheny Christmas tree and menorah, one factor contributing to the acceptability of the display was its appropriateness to the holiday season — a “location” in time that tended to secularize the display’s elements, because the holiday season to which they were tied was recognized as having both secular and spiritual aspects. The easelaw also hints that the short duration of such seasonal displays is to their benefit. See, e.g., Eckels, 589 F.Supp. at 235 (alluding to the “temporary governmental celebration of a religious holiday that has acquired some secular flavor”). In any event, the Austin city insignia can claim the benefit of neither of these factors; it is the emblem of no holiday and is a permanent fixture on the city’s insignia.
III.
A cross need not be erected on a mountaintop to become worthy of judicial scrutiny. Though small, the cross in Austin’s insignia is clearly visible even in the black- and-white reproduction appearing in the law books, not to mention the clarity it may take on when rendered in contrasting colors. Even at a distance of four feet, the cross in the reproduction remains recognizable for what it is, a Christian cross. The same cannot be said for the cross on the seal recently disapproved by the Seventh Circuit, which resembled — at any distance — nothing so much as a telephone pole in front of a factory. Harris, 927 F.2d at 1419 (Easterbrook, J., dissenting). I am therefore unpersuaded by the majority’s effort to distinguish Harris on the ground that “the Rolling Meadows’ seal arguably conveys a message of its being a ‘Christian community’ ” whereas Austin’s insignia purportedly does not. See majority op. at page 157. I am similarly unimpressed by the fact that the cross occupies only a small percentage of the insignia’s surface area in its various versions. See majority op. at page 157 n. 11 (cross in Austin’s insignia occupies a displacement area 0.12% to 0.4%). The constitutional significance of the cross’s presence in the Austin insignia cannot be reduced to some geometrical equation. Measuring a cross in terms of “displacement area” understates the cross’s visual impact since the essentially linear nature of a cross gives it a relatively small surface area. Though I claim no modicum of expertise in mathematics, I would suppose that even a cross mounted atop city hall, for example, would occupy a similarly negligible percentage of the surface area of the facade of that building. But surely no court would find that display constitutional.1 See St. Charles, 794 F.2d at 273 (upholding preliminary injunction prohibiting display of cross atop a firehouse during Christmas season).
The cross is not a “passive” symbol of a holiday season, as some have characterized a creche, menorah, and Christmas tree. See Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3139 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). Nor does it bear any resemblance to legislative prayer, “In God We Trust,” “God save this honorable Court,” and other ritual invocations approved by the Supreme Court. The Court’s *170approval stems from its conclusion that these instances of reflexive theism are nonsectarian, have largely lost their religious nature over time, and, in some cases at least, serve the secular function of solemnifying public occasions. See Allegheny, 109 S.Ct. at 3120-21; Lynch, 465 U.S. at 693, 104 S.Ct. at 1369; see also Jones v. City of Clear Creek, 930 F.2d 416, 421-22 (5th Cir.1991) (upholding constitutionality of nonsectarian invocations and benedictions at high school graduation ceremony); 103 Harv.L.Rev. at 237. Whatever one may think of this reasoning, the exception is quite narrow; change the inscription on our coinage to “Jesus Saves,” “Allah Be Praised,” or “Sha’ma Yisroel,” and no exception will avert an injunction. Minting a seal with a cross yields no greater seignior-age. The Christian cross has retained its religious nature for two thousand years and serves no secular function on the insignia. See St. Charles, 794 F.2d at 271 (Posner, J.) (“the Latin cross has not lost its Christian identity”). The exception is simply inapplicable.2
Although the majority “view[s] any perceived preference by use of the insignia to be even more remote than” the display of holiday symbols or the invocation of legislative prayer, majority op. at page 155 (referring to Lynch, Allegheny, and Marsh), the majority fails to identify a secular facet to the cross. There is none. Displayed prominently in the context of a city’s insignia, it conveys an unmistakable message of religious — indeed sectarian — endorsement.
IV.
A little accommodation is a dangerous thing — the floodwaters may not be far behind. We cannot discount this case as implicating nothing more than a trivial display, because in doing so, we establish a precarious precedent in the First Amendment forum. Religious symbols, when widely recognized as such, have no place in a city’s emblem.
I agree with Judge Easterbrook when he says that' “we ought to use bright line rules” in this very sensitive area of constitutional jurisprudence and “condemn the use of any religious imagery not nestled in a secular context.” Harris, 927 F.2d at 1425 (Easterbrook, J., dissenting). Otherwise, we judges will be immersed in the minutiae of graphic design, our rulers and calipers in hand, scrutinizing- each symbol for acceptable proportion, color, and gloss. With no principled basis for distinguishing one seal from the next, our opinions will be fastidiously fact-bound and our precedent hopelessly abstract.
I fear that the majority takes the first wobbly step in that direction. The road they will travel is no Appian Way. I would rather that we steer away from that course and follow the path of our sister circuits instead. Not prepared to join my colleagues on their perilous journey, I respectfully dissent. '

. I suppose that if we were forced to resort to a mathematical formula to resolve this case, I would suggest that we compare the height of the cross in relation to the diameter of the insignia; this ratio, in one version of the seal, is 1 to 8, or 12.5%. I would submit that such a ratio is far more telling of the visual impact of the seal than a measure of displacement area.

. Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 103 S.Ct. 3330, 77 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1983), relied upon heavily by the majority, is no saving grace. It must be read for what it is: a very narrow opinion on the singular issue of legislative prayer in the context of its "unique history.” Any effort to extend Marsh beyond the particular facts of that case is a reach, and not surprisingly, Marsh has been distinguished and construed narrowly by those courts confronting even factually similar cases. See, e.g., North Carolina Civil Liberties Union Legal Foundation v. Constangy, 947 F.2d 1145 (4th Cir.1991) (upholding injunction against state judge prohibiting him from opening his courtroom proceedings with a prayer).