The city of Los Angeles may have to change its name.
Also, cities like San Francisco, San Diego, and Santa Barbara could be looking for new monikers.
The reason?
They all have religious meaning in their names.
Los Angeles refers to the “City of Angels,” while the others refer to names of saints. In fact, the official name of Los Angeles is “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels of the Little Portion.”
According to the Los Angeles Daily News, a strong legal argument could be made to force municipal name changes, based on the argument the names violate the so-called separation of church and state.
The issue is being raised in the wake of the decision last week by Los Angeles County to remove a small cross from its official seal, as reported by WorldNetDaily.
“That’s absolutely right,” Joerg Knipprath, a professor of constitutional law at the Southwestern University School of Law, told the Daily News.
“The cross is a minor symbol on the county seal whereas Los Angeles is the ‘City of Angels.’ San Clemente, Santa Monica, Sacramento, San Francisco, etc., are all religious references. It’s far-fetched at this point. I don’t think it’s going to happen in the next ten years. But if somebody said ten or 20 years ago that we were going to challenge the Pledge of Allegiance or this tiny little cross on the county seal, the argument would have been that was far-fetched too.”
 L.A. County seal |
Ironically, the most prominent image in the L.A. County seal is one of Pomona, the pagan Roman goddess of fruits and nuts, though the American Civil Liberties Union did not object to the goddess in its push to have the cross removed.
Douglas Kmiec, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University School of Law, told the News based on its history, the ACLU or others will likely challenge the mention of religion at graduations and the names of cities with religious identification.
“The logic of the ACLU’s reasoning would suggest that Santa Monica should be renamed Monica, San Diego should be renamed Diego and on down the line,” he said. “Los Angeles is a similar reference to angels. The full title of Los Angeles is a distinctly religious name.”
The ACLU stresses it only becomes involved in issues when contacted by someone about a potential problem, and doesn’t expect the names of metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles to become an issue.
“That has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard,” ACLU spokesman Tenoch Flores said. “Nobody is considering suing to change city names. If anybody were to bring such a suit, it would be laughed out of court and rightfully so. We don’t go around looking for things, but we certainly don’t back down in the face of criticism if it’s determined that a constitutional issue is at stake.”
Jay Sekulow of the Virginia-based American Center for Law and Justice told the paper last week’s fight over the county seal is merely part of a growing trend.
“[The goal is to] purge all religious observances and references from American public life. Will [opponents] try to get the name of Los Angeles changed? Sure. Why not, if they can get the cross removed from the seal?”
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