It’s 40 feet tall and concrete. Is ‘Peace Cross’ a civic or Christian symbol?

There are a lot of complicated and painful reasons why Michael “Mikey” Weinstein decided to stand on the steps of the Supreme Court on Wednesday and speak out against the modest support a Maryland municipality provides for its massive World War I memorial, a century-old 40-foot cross. A lot of these reasons have to do with what could be called the emotional burdens of history – both his own experiences as a Jewish American veteran of the United States Air Force and those of many other Jews who’ve lived in majority-Christian countries throughout the span of time. It’s history, too, that makes the prominently placed concrete cross in Bladensburg, a town of 10,000 just outside the nation’s capital, such an important and even cherished war monument for many of its local residents, most of whom fully support spending some taxpayer dollars to maintain it on municipal property.

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