The attacks by members of the City Council of Albany, California, on the cross of Christ represent, in microcosm, the Marxist attacks on Christ and His followers across America.
Last week the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), whose mission is “to defend, without charge, the religious freedoms … of people who cannot defend themselves,” announced it was petitioning a court to allow the Albany Lions Club to restore a cross the city removed last summer.
The cross, a large, lighted steel and plexiglass structure, was constructed on private property owned by a member of the Albany Lions Club and dedicated on Easter Sunday 1971.
It was lit to celebrate Christmas and Easter every year since then, and was also used frequently by families and other members of the community for weddings, baby dedications, and memorial services.
When the family of the original donor sold the property to the city it obtained an ongoing easement allowing Lions Club members access to the cross to keep it in good repair.
But with the gradual degradation of the culture thanks to Marxist infiltration of its evil ideology, a local atheist group saw their opportunity to remove the cross, and they took it. The group enlisted the help of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), which sent a threatening letter to the City Council in April 2017. It said:
Nothing prevents the City from doing its duty here and taking down the exclusionary symbol of one religion … from public property that it owns….
The Albany Lions Club’s easement does not require the City to continue ownership of the cross, it merely provides for the group to have “ingress and egress to maintain the existing cross.”
If the City divests itself of the cross, there will no longer be an “existing cross” that the Club will need to maintain. The City is not obligated to allow a private group to maintain an exclusionary religious symbol on its property.
The City Council held public hearings on the matter condemning the cross. It made an offer to the Lions Club to purchase the easement and remove the cross for a sum of money, but the group refused.
In 2019 a temporary settlement allowed the cross to remain in place. But it was only a lull in the action.
Harassment began, which included disconnecting the electrical power to the cross. Power was restored months later, and that’s when the City Council vowed to “explore every avenue to remove the cross,” according to the PJI complaint filed last week.
Lies began spreading about how the lighting of the cross reminded some of KKK cross burnings. Said Dorena Osborn, granddaughter of the Lions Club member who offered to have the club build the cross on his property more than 50 years earlier:
There were lies actually brought up against the cross, saying that it had affiliation with the KKK. And there’s an atheist group that really hates the cross. And so they got people on the city council [to help] spread the lies.
In 2022 the city took control of the Lions Club’s easement via eminent domain, and in June 2023 succeeded in having the cross removed.
Last month PJI filed a petition to allow the club to restore the cross and the easement, claiming that the city violated the club’s First Amendment’s guarantee of the right of the free exercise of religion and speech. Said Brad Dacus, PJI’s president:
If there was a giant LGBT flag or something like that, this city would embrace it. No problem. So it’s specifically because of the viewpoint and the religious viewpoint and perspective of the cross [that is the issue]. That’s their agenda.
He added:
The City’s public statements and actions have been hostile and targeted the Christian cross because [of] its religious message.
The City Council lacked neutrality and attacked the cross and the Lions for [their] free exercise of religion and free speech.
It’s a vicious, blatant, anti-constitutional, discriminatory action by the City of Albany. And that’s what makes this case so shocking … the city didn’t even hide it.
It’s a very small minority of Christ-haters who are causing all the trouble in Albany. Said Lions Club President Kevin Pope:
I just … don’t like [how they’re] spreading the same lies over and over again. Christians are called to be ambassadors for Christ, ambassadors for love. We want peace. We don’t want to fight about this.
We are not against the city of Albany, but we are against the city council, the current city council. If they turned around and sold us the land, we’d be happy with that.
We don’t want division, but they are bringing division, and it’s a small group of people that are doing it.
It’s impossible to miss the parallels between the battle in Albany and the current war being waged against Christianity in the country. A tiny Marxist minority in control of the government intends to destroy the family, all religion except its own, and all private property.
Happily, there is a Supreme Court precedent that should settle the matter in Albany, if it goes that far. In American Legion v. American Humanist Association, decided in 2019, the high court ruled that a cross on government-owned land, originally built with private funds on private land, could remain standing. It held:
Though a symbol of Christianity, the cross on public land does not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment due to its historical value as a war memorial that has stood for nearly 100 years.
