DEPARTMENT SAYS IT WANTS TO MOVE CROSS

The Cape La Croix cross might be moved from state right of way off North Kingshighway, but the Freedom From Religion Foundation will have little to do with it, a Missouri Highways and Transportation Department official said.

The official in Jefferson City said the department might be encouraged by the foundation's letter, but the state was considering moving the concrete cross because state right of way was expanded a few years ago. The cross is a monument to three French missionaries.

"We're looking into possibly relocating that to somewhere off of the right of way," said the official, Tom Dollus. "That's where the efforts are going."

Dollus said the District 10 office in Sikeston was handling relocation of the cross. The problem, he said, isn't removing the cross but finding a place for it.

"Contact the ministerial alliance," said Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation of Madison, Wis. "They might want it. We just believe it doesn't belong on public property."

Gaylor said Monday the foundation might consider legal action if the cross isn't moved from the right of way. The group focuses on keeping church and state separate.

"And we think the cross violates the First Amendment guarantee," she said.

The foundation sent a letter to the department in November requesting the cross be removed because it violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of separation between church and state.

The cross was erected in 1947 to commemorate three French missionaries who floated down the Mississippi River in 1699 ministering to Indian settlements. The missionaries are believed to have stopped in Cape Girardeau. The highway department didn't have a timeframe to relocate the cross.