Post by ReformedLiberal on Aug 15, 2006 10:30:40 GMT -8
This case has implications that go far beyond its basic principle of a religious symbol prominently displayed at a war memorial. The cross, in Western culture, has been for centuries a non-denominational (even non-religious) gravemarker. But now that the issue will inevitably come before the SCOTUS, the premise of freedom FROM religion may finally be addressed and possibly undo decades of high and lower court prescedence of faulty interpretation of the (so called) separation of church and state; a term not found in the Constitution, but in a letter from Thomas Jefferson where he sought to assure a friend that the government was securely bound from interefering in religious matters. The literal interpretation, out of context, of an extra-Constitutional catch phrase should never have been allowed to determine the course of the law, but it is tossed around as though it was the surpreme law of the land. This convoluted and corrupted devolution of principle needs to be corrected once and for all.
We have gone from "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" to the court shall make laws disrespecting any public recognition of anything remotely connected to religion. An amendment to ensure that one faith or religion shall not be given preference over another has been turned into a crusade to purge all vestiges of reference to God from public view. It is high time we came to terms with the fact that we have gone far astray of the constitution already and the constitutional argument has been turned on its head. Successive rulings have driven us further and further from the original wording and intent of our founding fathers and the legacy they left us. Maybe this case, in which the opposition to the cross rests firmly on the actually non-Constitutional principle of "separation of church and state" will finally put an end to all of this nonsense.
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A bill signed into law Monday by President Bush transfers ownership of the land upon which the Mount Soledad cross sits to the federal government to be preserved as a national war memorial.
The legislation was authored by Rep. Duncan Hunter (news, bio, voting record), R-El Cajon, in an attempt to prevent the removal of the cross and end a 17-year legal battle over the constitutionality of its presence on city-owned land in La Jolla.
The bill was passed by the Senate earlier this month and by the House of Representatives in July.
James McElroy, the attorney for atheist Philip Paulson, who brought the original lawsuit in 1989, described the bill as "election-year politics" and pledged to continue the fight to have the cross removed.
He filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Diego last week challenging the impending transfer.
"We are going to see this through to the end," McElroy said in a telephone interview. "We seem to be winning every court battle. It would be nice if the politicians would pay attention."
McElroy said he expects his challenge to be heard sometime in September.
At a news conference at Mount Soledad, Mayor Jerry Sanders thanked the president for his support of the cross.
"I believe the president has substantially improved the chances that the desires of a vast majority of San Diego voters -- all those who voted to preserve the integrity of the memorial -- will finally be fulfilled," he said.
Supporters of the cross want any further legal challenges argued under the U.S. Constitution, which they believe is less stringent related to the presence of religious symbols on public land than the California Constitution.
But McElroy said it doesn't matter whether the cross sits on land owned by the city or federal government.
"If a cross is not legal on public property, it does not matter who owns the public property," he argued.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy agreed to intervene in the case last month, issuing a stay of a federal judge's ruling ordering the city to remove the cross or face fines of $5,000 per day.
Three years ago, the high court refused to consider the dispute.
Judges have twice ruled that the sale of the land surrounding the memorial to the Mount Soledad Memorial Association, which maintains the site along with hundreds of plaques that pay tribute to veterans, was unconstitutional.
In a special election last summer, 75 percent of San Diegans cast ballots in favor of Proposition A, which allowed the city to transfer the cross to the National Park Service to be designated a national war memorial.
A Superior Court judge subsequently ruled that the ballot measure was invalid and unenforceable because it gave preferential treatment to one religion over another. An appeal of that ruling is pending.
A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the city's request to hold off on U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson Jr.'s order to remove the cross or face fines, but agreed to hear arguments on a full appeal of the case in October.
The cross was built in 1954 as a memorial to veterans of the Korean War.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hailed the president's signing of Hunter's H.R. 5863, calling it "a great signal to our veterans that we will not forget the sacrifice that they made during times of conflict."
The governor, who visited the memorial last Friday, called it "a historic landmark that has been an important part of the San Diego community since it was erected over 50 years ago and will continue to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice in protecting our freedom."
Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Carlsbad, who attended the bill signing ceremony at the Oval Office, described the action as a "victory for tolerance."
"We are not going to start tearing down war memorials just because somebody may be offended one way or the other," Bilbray said. "At what level does this kind of religious intolerance stop?"
We have gone from "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" to the court shall make laws disrespecting any public recognition of anything remotely connected to religion. An amendment to ensure that one faith or religion shall not be given preference over another has been turned into a crusade to purge all vestiges of reference to God from public view. It is high time we came to terms with the fact that we have gone far astray of the constitution already and the constitutional argument has been turned on its head. Successive rulings have driven us further and further from the original wording and intent of our founding fathers and the legacy they left us. Maybe this case, in which the opposition to the cross rests firmly on the actually non-Constitutional principle of "separation of church and state" will finally put an end to all of this nonsense.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
A bill signed into law Monday by President Bush transfers ownership of the land upon which the Mount Soledad cross sits to the federal government to be preserved as a national war memorial.
The legislation was authored by Rep. Duncan Hunter (news, bio, voting record), R-El Cajon, in an attempt to prevent the removal of the cross and end a 17-year legal battle over the constitutionality of its presence on city-owned land in La Jolla.
The bill was passed by the Senate earlier this month and by the House of Representatives in July.
James McElroy, the attorney for atheist Philip Paulson, who brought the original lawsuit in 1989, described the bill as "election-year politics" and pledged to continue the fight to have the cross removed.
He filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Diego last week challenging the impending transfer.
"We are going to see this through to the end," McElroy said in a telephone interview. "We seem to be winning every court battle. It would be nice if the politicians would pay attention."
McElroy said he expects his challenge to be heard sometime in September.
At a news conference at Mount Soledad, Mayor Jerry Sanders thanked the president for his support of the cross.
"I believe the president has substantially improved the chances that the desires of a vast majority of San Diego voters -- all those who voted to preserve the integrity of the memorial -- will finally be fulfilled," he said.
Supporters of the cross want any further legal challenges argued under the U.S. Constitution, which they believe is less stringent related to the presence of religious symbols on public land than the California Constitution.
But McElroy said it doesn't matter whether the cross sits on land owned by the city or federal government.
"If a cross is not legal on public property, it does not matter who owns the public property," he argued.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy agreed to intervene in the case last month, issuing a stay of a federal judge's ruling ordering the city to remove the cross or face fines of $5,000 per day.
Three years ago, the high court refused to consider the dispute.
Judges have twice ruled that the sale of the land surrounding the memorial to the Mount Soledad Memorial Association, which maintains the site along with hundreds of plaques that pay tribute to veterans, was unconstitutional.
In a special election last summer, 75 percent of San Diegans cast ballots in favor of Proposition A, which allowed the city to transfer the cross to the National Park Service to be designated a national war memorial.
A Superior Court judge subsequently ruled that the ballot measure was invalid and unenforceable because it gave preferential treatment to one religion over another. An appeal of that ruling is pending.
A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the city's request to hold off on U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson Jr.'s order to remove the cross or face fines, but agreed to hear arguments on a full appeal of the case in October.
The cross was built in 1954 as a memorial to veterans of the Korean War.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hailed the president's signing of Hunter's H.R. 5863, calling it "a great signal to our veterans that we will not forget the sacrifice that they made during times of conflict."
The governor, who visited the memorial last Friday, called it "a historic landmark that has been an important part of the San Diego community since it was erected over 50 years ago and will continue to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice in protecting our freedom."
Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Carlsbad, who attended the bill signing ceremony at the Oval Office, described the action as a "victory for tolerance."
"We are not going to start tearing down war memorials just because somebody may be offended one way or the other," Bilbray said. "At what level does this kind of religious intolerance stop?"
