There doesn’t appear to be a high-res version of the Travis County, Texas seal anywhere online. Just small images like this one:
I’ve been staring at that picture and others like it for about 20 minutes now… because, supposedly, there’s a cross in the sky. I don’t see it in any of the images online. But it’s there, the people say.
Which is why they got angry when a larger version of the seal was created for the county’s Hall of Government (outside the court’s new meeting room) and they noticed the cross was missing.
So the commissioners just voted to etch it back into all the new, large versions of the seal:
Judge Sam Biscoe originally decided to take the cross off artwork of the seal in the court’s new meeting room and the room’s lobby after it became distorted in an enlarged version of the seal that the court reviewed in May.
Biscoe said the commissioners court Tuesday considered putting the cross back on after some county employees raised questions to Biscoe about its removal.
“I wasn’t going out of my way to keep it secret, and I wasn’t going out of my way to make it public,” Biscoe said. “So I said let’s have the court address it squarely.”
On Tuesday, following a closed session, they voted 4-1 to keep the cross.
At least one of the commissioners had the good sense to say that a cross has no business being on the seal:
“I think that this presents us with an opportunity to update our seal to something that’s more in keeping up with the changing population and demographic in our county,” Commissioner Sarah Eckhardt, the lone dissenter, said.
“In 2012, to … put in an implicit preference for Christianity is inappropriate.”
It’s absolutely inappropriate. And no doubt they’ll get at least the threat of a lawsuit. It’s surprising, in part, because the city of Austin makes up a large part of the county. And I always heard Austin was something of an anti-Texas.
Think it’s petty? Think it’s not worth caring about? I agree that it’s not the most egregious church/state violation we’ve ever seen. But if we let this pass without comment, you’ll start seeing other counties put crosses in their seals because we’re not raising a fuss over it. They’ll say, “You didn’t care when it happened in Travis County, so why do you care now?” And they would be right.
We have to nip these things in the bud before they become larger problems. That means fighting battles that we might otherwise ignore but can’t because Christians love to take advantage of the situation when they think no one else is looking.
(Thanks to Keith for the link!)
