{"id":479691,"date":"2026-09-29T20:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T20:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/479691\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T20:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T20:36:09","slug":"appeals-court-lets-cross-nativity-stay-in-los-angeles-historic-plaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/479691\/","title":{"rendered":"Appeals court lets cross, Nativity stay in Los Angeles historic plaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

A cross and Nativity will remain in a Los Angeles public plaza after a U.S. appeals court ruled against an atheist who brought a lawsuit to have the displays removed.<\/p>\n

The two monuments are located at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, the historical center of the Southern California city, marking its founding in 1781.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles resident Jack Gerritsen sued the city government claiming that the displays violate the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution. Gerritsen identifies himself as a \u201cnonbeliever\u201d in the suit and claims the monuments make him feel \u201cexcluded\u201d in the public space.<\/p>\n

A U.S. district court ruled against Gerritsen, after which he appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. On Sept. 29, the religious liberty law firm Becket announced that\u00a0the appeals court had also ruled against Gerritsen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The plaintiff \u201cfailed to establish the requirements\u201d to justify removing the monument, the appeals court said, including failing to establish that he would \u201csuffer irreparable harm\u201d if the monuments were left in place.<\/p>\n

He further failed to affirm that removing the monuments would be \u201cin the public interest,\u201d the court noted.<\/p>\n

The ruling comes after a group of merchants located on Olvera Street near the monuments\u00a0asked to join the lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0in defense of the public displays.<\/p>\n

Among them was cafe owner Edward Flores, who said that a cultural display such as the cross and Nativity helps \u201c[ennoble] Americans across all ethnicities, faiths, cultures, and generations to take pride in their own contributions and to see more clearly their future potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

The appeals court ultimately ruled against the efforts of the merchants to join the suit, arguing that their participation in the legal proceeding was moot given the court\u2019s dismissal of Gerritsen\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

But Andrea Butler, a lawyer at Becket who represented the merchants in their request,\u00a0said in a news release<\/a> that the ruling was \u201ccommon sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLos Angeles belongs to people of every faith and none, and its public square naturally bears the marks of that diversity,\u201d Butler said.<\/p>\n

The case will be sent back to lower district court following the appeals ruling, according to Becket. The law firm said the monuments will remain \u201cwhile courts move toward a final decision in the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"author<\/p>\n

\t\t\tDaniel Payne is a senior editor at EWTN News. He previously worked at the College Fix and Just the News. He lives in Virginia with his family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A cross and Nativity will remain in a Los Angeles public plaza after a U.S. appeals court ruled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-479691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}