The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has now definitively caved in to the ACLU’s demand to remove a tiny cross from the county seal: Board of Supervisors Affirms Decision to Remove Cross From County Seal. (Hat tip: Radian.)

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors yesterday affirmed its decision last week to negotiate an agreement with the ACLU of Southern California under which a tiny cross will be removed from the county seal.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich asked the board to “seek outside counsel for a comprehensive legal opinion” about the issue. The supervisors voted 3-2 on June 1 not to fight a court battle over the seal, and Antonovich’s motion failed by the same 3-2 vote, county spokeswoman Judy Hammond said.

Supervisor Don Knabe supported Antonovich’s motion, but Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky, Gloria Molina and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, opposed it.

Hundreds of people spurred on by a radio talk show host gathered in and outside the Board of Supervisors meeting room to protest the plans for removing the cross.

“In the Soviet Union there was a joke,” said radio host Dennis Prager, who is Jewish, as he spoke before the board.

“A very powerful dissident joke—I’m sure that Zev remembers this. They used to say in the Soviet Union, `The future is known; it’s the past which is always changing.’

”Totalitarianism is not possible, unless you erase the past. That is what you did. That is why there are so many people here and thousands outside.”

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