LOS ANGELES -- A federal judge says Los Angeles County violated the Constitution by voting to put a cross on the county seal.

 

City News Service says the judge ruled Thursday in a lawsuit filed two years ago by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

 

The seal is used on county buildings, vehicles and documents. The cross was removed when the original 1957 seal was redesigned in 2004 after the ACLU threatened legal action.

 

But in 2014, county supervisors voted to put a cross atop the seal's depiction of the San Gabriel Mission.

 

Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Don Knabe argued that was historically accurate.

 

But the judge says restoring a cross to the seal "places the county's power, prestige and purse behind a single religion, Christianity" and that's unconstitutional.