L.A. County Seal: SCOTUS-bound?

The valiant souls who have been fighting for the restoration of the original Los Angeles County seal think they might get a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. I wish them well. The ACLU-inspired purge of a small cross from the seal three years ago was a gross display of anti-religious intolerance. It would serve the gutless county supervisors and their bully pals at the ACLU well to get their judicial comeuppance.

That said, I find myself less than optimistic that the SCOTUS effort would succeed.

Had the county not caved in to the ACLU -- that is, had it kept the original seal -- and had the ACLU taken the matter to trial, the county would have won easily. The seal never conferred any kind of religious endorsement; it merely acknowledged that the Los Angeles area was settled by Christian missionaries. Like the name "Los Angeles," the old seal pointed to our region's religious heritage without establishing anything close to a state religion.

But, of course, the county didn't fight, opting to surrender to the ACLU. And that has created a much more complicated case.

Anti-religious thinking likely influenced the supes' decision to remove the seal, but short of reading minds, how could that ever be proven in a court of law? And while the Constitution doesn't preclude the county from including a cross on its seal, it certainly doesn't require one, either.

The irony is that when the supes voted to kill the cross, they said they did so to save money -- never mind that changing the insignia on every county vehicle, form, letterhead, etc., would cost $700,000. That was a pittance, they said, compared to what it would have cost in legal expenses to defend the old seal.

But now they find themselves spending untold millions -- they refuse to disclose how much -- to protect their new, politically correct seal. So they've saved the taxpayers nothing, while creating needless controversy and insulting the intelligence of every one of us forced to foot the bill.