Can a 40-foot cross be secular? Supreme Court says yes.

When Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan joined the fragmented 7-2 majority that allowed the Bladensburg Peace Cross in Maryland to remain standing as it is, she said she found much to admire in her conservative colleagues’ reasoning – even those parts with which she disagreed.

The Supreme Court decision announced on Thursday was the latest in a long history of vexing constitutional questions about the place of religious symbols in the nation’s civic spaces – legal conflicts that have often contributed to the nation’s “culture wars” and its deep social divides.

And while she didn’t have too much to say in her short, partial concurrence with the high court’s majority decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito, she mostly singled out a section of historical analysis with which she couldn’t quite concur.

Justice Alito explored how Congress and other