Despite a vote by San Francisco’s Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board to bestow landmark status on a cross atop Mount Davidson, Jewish groups opposing the symbol say that designation is far from certain.
Although an August 1996 federal court appeals ruling deemed the cross’ placement on public property unconstitutional, last week’s unanimous vote is seen as a first step in efforts to keep the cross intact. However, the declaration must now be approved by the full San Francisco Planning Commission, as well as by the Board of Supervisors.
The vote is “not at all a determination that it will be landmarked,” said Fred Blum, the attorney representing the American Jewish Congress, a plaintiff in the case. “There are still a lot of steps.”
The AJCongress, American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and private citizens of various faiths joined together in 1990 to sue the city and county of San Francisco and the county Recreation and Park Commission. The Anti-Defamation League filed a friend of the court brief.
Plaintiffs claimed the 103-foot concrete cross violates the state and federal constitutional separation of church and state and demanded that the city either sell the property to private owners or remove the symbol. They argued that the symbol’s presence on taxpayer-supported property offends non-Christians.
The city countered that the cross is a historical landmark akin to the Golden Gate Bridge, popular with people of all faiths.
Last week’s vote flies in the face of the August ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which overturned a 1992 district court ruling in favor of the city.
In deeming the cross unconstitutional, the appeals court cited the absence of other religious symbols nearby — a violation of the state’s no-preference clause, the court said — and the cross’ lack of historical significance.
“The cross does not become imbued with the mountain’s history merely because it was erected upon it,” the court decision read. “Mount Davidson will retain its historical significance with or without a cross atop it.”
Last week, the Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board made clear its disagreement with that stance, as commissioners and community members argued that the history and architecture of the freestanding cross, which has stood atop Mount Davidson since 1934, make it worthy of landmark status.
Such status would essentially prevent demolition of the cross, though the fight over its ownership is far from over.
The city, in fact, has vowed to fight the appeals court ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, whether or not the cross is granted landmark status, plaintiffs remain firm in their belief that the cross is a decidedly Christian icon.
“I don’t care what you call it; it’s still a cross,” Blum said. “I don’t care if you call it strawberry jelly. It’s still the pre-eminent symbol of Christianity. That was the basis of the 9th Circuit’s decision.”
In that decision, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain wrote for the court that “the Mount Davidson cross carries great religious significance. Indeed, to suggest otherwise would be to demean this powerful religious symbol.”