Shared Values - Prager Fights for the Cross

Why would Dennis Prager*, a Jew, lead a movement to stop the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors from deleting an image on the county seal, especially when that image is a Christian cross? Answer: shared values.

Here’s the background. A number of months ago someone at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) got a microscope and discovered a very small cross on the LA county seal. According to county records the cross was meant to represent “the influence of the (Christian) church and the missions of California.” Aghast, the ACLU immediately contacted the Board of Supervisors who, in turn, summarily voted to expunge the offending symbol. Prager acted, mobilizing listeners of his radio program Dennis Prager to protest what he called, “the rewriting of Los Angeles County history.” Some 2000 people showed up to demonstrate.

I’ll let Mr. Prager tell you in his own words why this issue animated him so.

I am asked why, as a Jew, I have led this fight to keep the cross on the county seal.

I have three responses.

First, I fear those who rewrite history.

As a graduate student at Columbia University’s Russian Institute, I learned that a major characteristic of totalitarian regimes is their frequent rewriting of history. As a famous Soviet dissident joke put it: “In the Soviet Union, the future is known; it’s the past which is always changing.” Given the relationship between changing the past and totalitarianism, those who love liberty ought to be frightened by the action of the ACLU and the Board of Supervisors.

Second, I fear intolerance. And the move to expunge the singular Christian contribution to Los Angeles County is intolerant to the point of bigotry. No religious Christians, despite their deep opposition to paganism, ever objected to the pagan goddess that is many times larger than the cross. I have found over and over that most Christians are more tolerant than most leftists who preach tolerance.

Third, and most important, I fear the removal of the Judeo-Christian foundation of our society. This is the real battle of our time, indeed the civil war of our time. The left wants the United States to become secular like Western Europe, not remain the Judeo-Christian country it has always been. But unlike the left, I do not admire France, Belgium and Sweden. And that is what the battle over the seal of Los Angeles County is ultimately about. It is not about separation of church and state. It is about separation of Los Angeles from its history. And it is about separation of the nation from its moral foundations.

That is what this American, this Jew, and millions of others believe is at stake in the left’s attempt to impose a redesign of the Los Angeles County seal and thereby redesign America.

My thoughts exactly.


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For the entire article see “A Jew Fights for the Cross”, Los Angeles Times – Opinion Section (November 14, 2004)

* Dennis Prager hosts a radio talk show heard in the Los Angeles area on 870 KRLA. He is a columnist, author of four books and teaches the Torah at the University of Judaism.