Monday, January 10, 2011

Appeals court says cross on federal land is unconstitutional

Hard to believe that this is still rumbling on:
"A war memorial cross in a San Diego public park is unconstitutional because it conveys a message of government endorsement of religion, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a two decade old case.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the unanimous decision in the dispute over the 29-foot cross, which was dedicated in 1954 in honor of Korean War veterans.

U.S. Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said the federal government, which is defending the San Diego cross, is studying the ruling and had no comment.

Gina Coburn, spokeswoman for the San Diego's city attorney's office, which was once a defendant in the case, said the cross will have to be removed from Mount Soledad unless a full panel of 9th Circuit judges reverses Tuesday's decision or the Supreme Court agrees to rule on it.

The land under the cross was eventually transferred to the federal government but the courts have said that did not protect it from the constitutional dispute.

Joe Infranco, senior counsel of The Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian legal group, said the memory of troops should not be dishonored because the ACLU and a few others are offended by the presence of the cross.

"It's tragic that the court chose a twisted and tired interpretation of the First Amendment over the common sense idea that the families of fallen American troops should be allowed to honor these heroes as they choose," he said.

The Rev. John Fredericksen of Orlando, Fla., was among a steady stream of people who visited the white cross Tuesday atop Mount Soledad, which affords spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and the surrounding upscale suburb of La Jolla.

"For those who are offended, they can move or look somewhere else," the 56-year-old Christian pastor said. "Christians are not asking every mosque or synagogue to be torn down. Why tear down a symbol of Christianity? Let them find or make their own memorial."

Source

10 comments:

Stucco Holmes said...

"Hard to believe that this is still rumbling on"

Hard to believe that JJR is still covering this.

Jonathan Lewin said...

This is a hard one to call. On the one hand, I worry about the effort to remove Christian symbols wherever they appear.

However, the memorial is in a public park and the memorial is meant to apply to all soldiers, whether they were Christian or not. So placing a cross there in the first place was a very poor decision.

The most powerful argument for removing the cross was given by
the Rev. John Fredericksen who appears to be an idiot. He argues that the call to remove the cross from the memorial in a public park is equivalent to a call to destroy synagogues and mosques. In making this argument, he is allocating to the memorial the status of a church and asserting that the memorial is specifically a Christian institution in that park. If he represents the thinking of those who want the cross to remain there, then the courts are right and it must go.

But then, as I have said, Fredericksen is an idiot and, hopefully, does not represent others. So I don't know whether the cross should be removed.

Anonymous said...

Why not invoke a "grandfather" clause.

This cross stands because it was there before the ACLU decided to play God. But no more in the future.

Anonymous said...

Does this mean Arlington, and other national cemeteries dedicated to our fallen warriors, will have their headstones removed? And if so, will only crosses be removed?

Anonymous said...

Why not sell the land upon which the cross sits to a private institution? Then it is no longer on public property.

Anonymous said...

"It is clear that the left is immune to truth and, probably, indifferent to truth as well. When we hope that somehow logic, facts or wisdom will suddenly grab leftists and make them sane and decent people, then we ignore -- at our peril -- the obvious: leftism is a soul-disease. The first step to curing this malady is understanding that the ones who are sick must first want to be cured."
-- Bruce Walker

Anonymous said...

The attacks are not simply local.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=43513

Roy Bean said...

The only thing in this story that's truly unconstitutional is, the 9th Circus court itself!

Stucco Holmes said...

"Why not invoke a "grandfather" clause."

Even grandfathers die at some point. Mine have.

Spurwing Plover said...

Too many liberal left-wing activists judges who need to be removed from the bench the same way the UNITED NATIONS needs to be completly removed from america and the entire area bulldozed and turned into a bird refuge