In a case which seems destined never to end, the cross atop Mount Soledad in La Jolla has just won another lease on life. Part of a city memorial for veterans (not part of the original design, I recall), the cross has been the object of lawsuits objecting to a Christian symbol on public land for two decades. Since then judgments have gone this way and that. Its fate helped swing an emergency mayoral election a few years ago when the whole city government had resigned or been indicted for graft and the city was near bankruptcy. (Don't say we don't have our priorities straight in Republican Southern California!) And the cross itself has even changed hands - when a California court ruled it was a violation of the California state constitution in 2006 and said the city would be fined for each day it remained up, it was proposed to give the small piece of land with the cross on it to a private non-profit, but then no less an entity than the US Congress claimed it by eminent domain and gave it to the Department of Defense! Now a U. S. District Court (appealing to two recent 5-4 Supreme Court decisions) has judged that it's essentially a secular monument, aimed at and serving the community of veterans rather than any religious community, and can stay. “The Court finds the memorial at Mt. Soledad, including its Latin cross, communicates the primarily non-religious messages of military service, death, and sacrifice,” Judge Larry Burns ruled. So it can stay! But don't think it ends here; critics who think a cross is preeminently a religious symbol (and/or think religion is what's behind most supporters' support of it) will probably try to take it to the Supreme Court. Whew! (Read all about it in the San Diego Union-Tribune.)
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Secular cross
In a case which seems destined never to end, the cross atop Mount Soledad in La Jolla has just won another lease on life. Part of a city memorial for veterans (not part of the original design, I recall), the cross has been the object of lawsuits objecting to a Christian symbol on public land for two decades. Since then judgments have gone this way and that. Its fate helped swing an emergency mayoral election a few years ago when the whole city government had resigned or been indicted for graft and the city was near bankruptcy. (Don't say we don't have our priorities straight in Republican Southern California!) And the cross itself has even changed hands - when a California court ruled it was a violation of the California state constitution in 2006 and said the city would be fined for each day it remained up, it was proposed to give the small piece of land with the cross on it to a private non-profit, but then no less an entity than the US Congress claimed it by eminent domain and gave it to the Department of Defense! Now a U. S. District Court (appealing to two recent 5-4 Supreme Court decisions) has judged that it's essentially a secular monument, aimed at and serving the community of veterans rather than any religious community, and can stay. “The Court finds the memorial at Mt. Soledad, including its Latin cross, communicates the primarily non-religious messages of military service, death, and sacrifice,” Judge Larry Burns ruled. So it can stay! But don't think it ends here; critics who think a cross is preeminently a religious symbol (and/or think religion is what's behind most supporters' support of it) will probably try to take it to the Supreme Court. Whew! (Read all about it in the San Diego Union-Tribune.)
