First attempt to stamp out LA County cross unsuccessful

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — In a scene more reminiscent of the Easter Story than the Bethlehem Nativity, a cross on the county’s seal reappeared Christmas week, just days after officials covered it up after a threatened lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The small cross, on the seal since the 1950s, was featured in one of six panels that surrounded a depiction of Pomona, the pagan Roman goddess of fruit.

Responding to the ACLU threat, the county Board of Supervisors voted in June to redesign the logo without the cross. The updated seal also dropped the image of Pomona, replacing her with an American Indian woman. The new seals also include an image of the San Gabriel Mission—without its cross.

On Dec. 17, work crews unceremoniously covered crosses, featured on two large seals inside the board’s hearing room, with new decals depicting a modified seal. By Dec. 21, the cross was clearly bleeding through the new decals. The replacement cost for the two seals was about $1,800. In all, the county is expected to spend $700,000 replacing the seal on all county property.

“The cross has resurrected itself on the county seal,” Los Angeles County Fourth District Supervisor Don Knabe said in a prepared statement Dec. 21. “County employees just covered the old seal on Friday afternoon, and, in three days, the original cross has begun to bleed through to be visible again. “

As a result, Knabe is calling on the administration to suspend plans to replace all county seals until the status of an ongoing petition drive to save the cross is determined.

“I don’t think we should spend another dollar of taxpayer money to replace the seal to eliminate that cross,” Knabe said.

Knabe, who along with Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich were vocal from the beginning in their opposition to changing the seal, said the latest development was steeped in irony.

“It is very symbolic that the cross has reappeared on the new seal directly above the new icon of a mission, which does not have a cross,” Knabe said. “It is only appropriate.”

For his part, Antonovich also took exception to the replacement of the cross, releasing a short, but direct, statement on Dec. 17.

“This act of religious bigotry is a direct attack on the First Amendment and the county taxpayers—forced to spend nearly $1 million to conform to the ACLU’s anti-religious demands.”

While city workers proceeded with the ongoing effort to replace the crosses, a grassroots effort to reinstate the cross is still under way with a petition drive to get the matter before the voters. Cross supporters tried unsuccessfully to get the supervisors to put the matter on the November ballot.

In September the Committee to Support the Los Angeles Seal Ordinance launched the petition drive, which is expected to last until the early spring. In all, more than 800 groups are circulating the petition, according to David Hernandez, who leads the support effort.

The group hopes to secure the 341,212 signatures necessary to force the supervisors to adopt an ordinance reaffirming the original seal as the official emblem of Los Angeles County.

The effort may also include a two-day January marathon walk from the mission in San Gabriel to the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, home of the county offices. Details of the walk were not available at press time.

For more information on the petition effort, log on to ourfirstamendment.org.

Published by Keener Communications Group, January 2005

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