Lehigh County’s official government seal, bearing images long associated with the Lehigh Valley, from a barn and farmland to smokestacks and a silo, has been a piece of the region’s heritage since the 1940s.
Visible on government buildings and county documents, at county parks and prominently displayed behind county commissioners as they conduct business at monthly meetings, it has generated little attention for decades.
Until now.
More than 70 years after it was created, the seal, featured prominently atop the county’s website, has suddenly become the subject of a developing tug of war between a civil rights advocacy group that recently raised objections over a Latin cross in the center of the seal and defenders of the seal’s place in history.
Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that promotes separation of church and state, is urging the county to remove the cross, calling it unconstitutional.
The Pennsylvania Pastors Network, meanwhile, has responded by blasting the challenge and speaking out in support of the seal and its cross.
Whatever county officials think about it, they aren’t saying.
County commissioners — citing potential litigation — have twice met behind closed doors over the past two months to discuss the issue, but have yet to say publicly how they plan to respond.
“We anticipate making a decision shortly,” said Brad Osborne, chairman of the Board of Commissioners. “And that will be in public session when we do.”
Freedom From Religion Foundation, which says it counts 700 Pennsylvanians as members, has twice written to County Executive Tom Muller urging a change to the emblem. The letter wasn’t unusual for the group, which sent nearly 1,000 of those types of letters in 2013, according to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service.
Patrick C. Elliott, an attorney for the group, said the inclusion of the cross on the seal violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment that “at the very least prohibits government from appearing to take a position on questions of religious belief.”
“It makes no difference what justification the county provides for including the cross on the Lehigh County seal,” Elliott wrote in his letter. “Courts addressing similar depictions have found that the inclusion of a Latin cross on government seals and logos violates the Establishment Clause.”
In an interview, Elliott said the issue, brought to his organization’s attention by a Lehigh Valley resident last fall, could eventually wind up before a judge, but that his group hopes the county chooses to abide by its request.
“We’d like them to cease using it and come up with a [seal] that is representative of everyone in the county, not just the Christian community,” Elliott said.
The Pennsylvania Pastors Network released a statement last week saying the request “shows not only hostility toward Christianity, but also gross ignorance of our nation’s founding documents.”
Sam Rohrer, president of the American Pastors Network, called the Freedom From Religion Foundation an “atheistic, God-resisting, God-denying organization” that is seeking to purge anything that opposes atheism.
“Their interest is not defending the Constitution,” he said. “Their interest is pursuing a special interest that is atheistic and that is opposed to what this nation is in every way.”
One county resident — Lower Milford Township Supervisor William Roy — already has challenged commissioners to stand their ground.
“I’m not one to run from a fight,” Roy told commissioners at their March 11 meeting. “I’m asking you to take this challenge and preserve our county seal with the cross intact. This is our heritage. This is our history. We shouldn’t run from this.”
George A. Nation III, a professor of law and business at Lehigh University, said the deck is stacked against the county in terms of legal precedent.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on a seal case, a number of federal appeals courts have weighed in and typically have ruled in favor of the group or person challenging the use of a cross.
He said the county would have to argue the historical significance of the cross.
“What the Constitution does is prohibit the establishment of a religion by government,” Nation said. “It doesn’t keep religion out of government. It keeps government from picking a religion to be a winner or the official religion.”
According to Lehigh County Historical Society records, county Commissioner Harry D. Hertzog designed the seal, which was adopted in 1944. An undated Call-Chronicle story about the seal says the cross in the center of the shield represents “Christians who settled in Lehigh County.
The seal contains images of the American and Pennsylvania flags. The Call-Chronicle story says a heart on the seal represents the city of Allentown and surrounds two books and a lamp of learning that symbolizes the county’s education system.
Buntings symbolize the county’s diversified clothing industries. Also shown are the Lehigh County Courthouse, the Liberty Bell, the head of an American bison, a barn, farmland, a cow and smokestacks of a cement mill.
Joseph Garrera, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Historical Society, said designs in seals have historically been decorative.
“I think we tend to make more of something than there really is,” he said. “I think it’s a good example of overstating the original intent.”
Osborne said following his board’s March 11 meeting that the board was still exploring its options.
Muller said that altering the seal would create an expense for taxpayers, “but I don’t think it’s a massive expense. It’s not something in the millions of dollars, but I don’t know what it would be.”
Elliott, in his letter to Lehigh County, said that federal courts have ruled that similar seals violate the Constitution. He cited multiple cases involving a Latin cross in Edmond, Okla.; La Mesa, Calif.; Zion, Ill.; and Stow, Ohio. In those cases, he said, courts have ruled the cross violated the First Amendment.
Some governments that have received similar challenges have changed their seals to avoid a legal battle.
In 2012, the city of Buhler, Kan., decided to redesign its city seal after a similar challenge brought by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which complained about a cross, according to the Hays Daily News. In 2004, the city of Redlands, Calif., removed a cross from its logo, according to the Associated Press.
Elliott’s organization describes its mission in tax return documents as “to keep church and state separated.” It indicated in those documents that it was a party to a dozen lawsuits in 2013. Elliott said the cost for the plaintiff in those cases typically runs around $250,000.
The organization spent $255,535 on lawsuits challenging “entanglement of religion and government” and related issues in 2013, according to the most recent filings with the IRS available. It spent more than $1 million on educational events, meetings, conventions, media appearances and other related activities.
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