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Posted By on February 6, 2014

AP

LA County's decision to restore a cross to the depiction of the San Gabriel Mission on its official seal is being challenged by the ACLU.

In a reprise of an earlier legal fight, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California sued the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Thursdayfor voting to return a religious cross to the official County seal.

The restoration of the cross to the County seal favors the Christian religion over all other religions, says the federal lawsuit. It argues that the addition of the cross would violate the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The clause, part of the First Amendment, bars the preference of one religion over another by government agencies.

RELATED: AirTalk discussesACLU's lawsuit against LA County over restoring religious cross to county seal

The ACLU is representing eight religious leaders, including Reverend Edwin Bacon of All Saints Church in Pasadena, Rabbi Harold Schulweiss of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, and Shakeel Syed, a lay leader in the Muslim community.

In 2004, under threat of another lawsuit by the ACLU, the board of supervisors voted 3-2 to remove the cross from the county seal. The cross was part of the first official seal, created in 1957, and was featured above a rendering of the Hollywood Bowl.

The vote to remove it sparked a legal battle that culminated in 2007 with the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to hear a challenge by conservative Christian groups to the boards vote.

Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky, Gloria Molina, and Yvonne Burke all Democrats comprised the board majority that voted to remove the seal.

Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Don Knabe, both Republicans, voted against removing the cross, and proposed restoring it last year. Last month, supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Democrat who replaced Burke in 2008, joined them in voting to return the cross to the seal. They argued they were making the seal historically correct, because the San Gabriel Mission depicted on the County seal has a cross.

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