Aztecs 1, Christians 0

ONLY days before Easter, and on St Patrick's day to boot, the Supreme Court refused to consider whether a publicly-owned 103-foot monument crowning the highest hill in San Francisco is a “cultural landmark”, as the city's government has argued, rather than what it looks like: a gigantic Christian cross. By letting stand a lower court's decision, the Supreme Court agreed that San Francisco's civic ownership of the cross violates the California constitution's guarantee of government neutrality in religious matters. The cross, erected in 1934, will have to be either dismantled or (as looks likely) taken into the hands of a consortium of private groups.