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Court: San Diego Veteran Memorial Cross Must Come Down by August 1

ANN ARBOR, MI, June 23, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A three–judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to stay Federal District Judge Gordon Thompson’s order to remove San Diego’s Mt. Soledad Cross pending an appeal.

The 43 foot Cross was erected in 1954 and currently is the centerpiece of a national memorial honoring American veterans of all wars.

According to a court order, the City of San Diego must remove the Cross by August 1, 2006, or face fines of $5,000 per day thereafter. In its decision, however, the Ninth Circuit scheduled oral arguments on the matter for the week of October 16, 2006, weeks after the Cross is to be removed.

The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been fighting to save the Cross since 2004 when it received information that the private memorial association operating the memorial site and the City were about to agree to settle the case, which had been on going for 15 years, by removing the Cross.

Richard Thompson, the Law Center’s President and Chief Counsel, commented on the recent order: “It is an outrage and insult not only to Christians, but people of all faiths, that this memorial site to our veterans and fallen war heroes would be desecrated by removal of a universally recognized symbol of sacrifice just because one atheist was upset about it. We will continue our legal fight to save the cross. A quick answer to the current legal challenge would be for the federal government to step in and take the land under its power of eminent domain. So far they have remained silent.”

Continued Thompson, “The Cross and memorial honors those Americans of all faiths who have given their lives to preserve our religious freedom; we are now called upon to do whatever it takes to prevent the courts from destroying the Cross that symbolizes our religious heritage and their sacrifice.”

Rob Muise, a Law Center trial counsel who has authored many of the pleadings in this case, indicated that further legal action will be taken to preserve the cross and memorial. Said Muise, “Friends, comrades, and family members of thousands of our fallen veterans have chosen the Mt. Soledad memorial as a place to honor and remember their fallen heroes. As a former Marine officer and veteran of the first Persian Gulf War, I am sickened by the thought of the pain that these court decisions must be causing for these grieving families. Our veterans deserve better than this.”

In December 2004 Congress and the President designated the Mt. Soledad Cross, the land on which it stands, and the granite memorial walls surrounding it a national veterans’ memorial. The congressional action authorized the Department of the Interior to accept a donation of the property. The Secretary of the Interior would administer the Memorial as a unit of the National Park System, giving the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association the right of continued maintenance of the Cross and surrounding granite memorial walls and plaques.

However, despite widespread support, the San Diego City Council declined to make the donation. As a result, a religiously diverse, grass roots organization, “San Diegans for the Mt Soledad War Memorial,” headed by Jewish businessman Philip Thalheimer, obtained more than 100,000 signatures on petitions, calling on the council to reverse its decision. In response, the City Council opted to place the question authorizing the transfer as Proposition A on the July 2005 special election ballot.

Plaintiff Paulson’s attorney filed a second lawsuit, this time in state court, seeking to stop the vote. Despite the fact that the ballot proposal passed by an astonishing 76% of the vote, State Court Judge Patricia Cowett ruled that Proposition A violated the California constitution. Her order is being appealed as well.

 

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