A US atheist group has sought the removal of a cross found amid the wreckage after the terrorist attacks on the 
Twin Towers in 2001 from the 9/11 memorial in New York.
The group, American Atheist, filed a lawsuit seeking a court order to remove a cross-shaped steel beam, found by a construction worker after the attack, who said he stumbled onto a miracle.
The cross was moved to the Ground Zero memorial last weekend after a blessing by a Catholic priest. The memorial is due to open on the 10th anniversary of the attacks in September. The cross is to become part of the permanent collection of a 9/11 museum opening next year.
Reverend Brian Jordan, who was instrumental in their preservation, said people from other religions came to pray collectively when he blessed the beam. He said it provided comfort to hundreds of suffering people and continues to do so.
Museum officials said the cross was being displayed not because of its religious value but the role it played in the aftermath of the attacks.
“The mission of the National September 11 Memorial Museum is to tell the history of 9/11 through historic artefacts like the World Trade Center cross. This steel remnant became a symbol of spiritual comfort for the thousands of recovery workers who toiled at ground zero, as well as for people around the world,” museum president Joe Daniels said in a statement.
Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, the group which filed the lawsuit, said its main concern was equality.
He said 9/11 was an American tragedy, “but the Christian community has secured sole representation in the memorial for itself at the exclusion of other religions and philosophies.”
He added: “What we’re looking for is a remedy that honours everyone equally, with a religion-neutral display, or display of equal size and prominence.” Silverman said American Atheists has offered to pay for such a display and has several ideas to represent all religions – such as a firefighter carrying out a victim.
The move has been widely criticised. The Alliance Defence Fund, a US group which provides assistance to those who seek to protect religious freedom, said the lawsuit was “completely out of step with the Constitution”.
ADF Senior Counsel Byron Babione said that the cross “simply does not amount to a government establishment of religion under either the U.S. Constitution or the New York Constitution”.
“The cross is not only known far and wide as a religious symbol, but also as a symbol of death, remembrance, and honor for the dead. Americans have long recognized this. Nothing in the Constitution authorizes atheists to scour the landscape on a mission to seek and destroy memorial crosses,” Mr Babione added.
In April 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that a veterans’ memorial in the form of a cross in the Mojave Desert of California did not have to be removed.
In that ruling, the court wrote: “The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm…. The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion’s role in society.”