An atheist group in America has issued a lawsuit to prevent the September 11 museum from displaying a cross. According to the group, the museum is a public institution and should not reflect a specific religion.
However the same cross has had a prominent place in the 9/11 tragedy and is integral to its history.
Representatives say the museum's mission is to tell the history of September 11 through items from the site, like the cross.
In the days after the 9/ 11 terrorist attacks, some workers and mourners at the World Trade Centre site seized upon a cross-shaped steel beam found amid the rubble as a symbol of faith and hope.
For the past five years, the 17-foot-tall cross was displayed outside a nearby Catholic Church.
On Saturday, it was moved again, to the site of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, where it is to be in the permanent collection.
This move sparked the lawsuit from American Atheists, a non-profit organisation.
They say that the cross is a symbol of Christianity and because the museum receives some government funding and is state owned, including the cross in the exhibition violates the U.S. Constitution and state civil-rights law.
Many Americans are very annoyed at the lawsuit.
It is just a few months to the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and this is yet another dispute that mars attempts to create a memorial.
The symbol of the cross has gone into the mythology of the 9 /11 site of the terrorist attacks.
One story is that two days after the disaster, a construction worker found several perfectly formed crosses planted upright in a pit in the rubble of the heavily damaged World Trade Centre.
The large, cross-shaped metal beams just happened to fall that way when one of the towers collapsed.
An FBI chaplain, who spent days at ground zero, says he has not seen anything like it on the vast site.
Rescue workers and firemen went to that area to pause or pray when things became too much.
The chaplain prayed with many people there at the crosses during those terrible days.
One of those crosses is currently at the centre of the lawsuit and Fr. Brian Jordan OFM, a Franciscan priest, prayed and declared it to be, “A symbol of hope… of faith… of healing.”
A replica has been installed at the gravesite of Father Mychal Judge, the New York Fire Department chaplain who was killed in the collapse of one of the World Trade Centre buildings.
Other surviving crossbeams were salvaged from the rubble and one was given to a Far Rockaway, New York chapter of the Knights of Columbus in 2004.
Another replica cross was fashioned by ironworkers from Trade Centre steel and installed at Graymoor, the headquarters of the Society of the Atonement, a religious order of Franciscan friars.
The nearby St. Paul's Chapel, which survived the destruction and was a refuge for survivors and site labourers, sells various replicas of the cross, including lapel pins and rosaries.
The cross even inspired labourers to depict it in tattoos.
Fr. Jordan has been trying to preserve the cross since April 2006.
St. Peter's Church, which faces the World Trade Centre site, was proposed as a temporary spot for relocation during construction of the new station and office tower at the site.
It had a plaque that read, “The Cross at Ground Zero - Founded September 13, 2001; Blessed October 4, 2001; Temporarily Relocated October 15, 2006. Will return to WTC Museum, a sign of comfort for all."
The American Atheists, said, that in taking the lawsuit, they want either the removal of the cross or "equal representation.”
They suggest that every religious position should be able to display a symbol of equal size and stature.
A spokesperson said that their atheist symbol for the museum could be an atom, as everybody is made up of atoms, or perhaps a representation of a fire fighter carrying a victim.
He said that such a representation would spread the message about helping others, and it would not be derogatory against any religion or any person.
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