Politics
Thursday May 4, 2006
Judge Orders San Diego to Remove Disputed Mountain Cross Erected in 1954
ACLU triumphs over wishes of 105,000 citizens who signed ballot initiative
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
By Gudrun Schultz
SAN DIEGO, California, May 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A federal judge ended a 15-year battle over a hilltop cross in the city of San Diego yesterday, ordering the city to remove the cross within 90 days or pay fines of $5,000 per day, reported WorldNetDaily yesterday.
The fight over the Mount Soledad cross has been in the courts since a 1991 ruling that the 29-foot cross violates “separation of church and state,” since the cross sits on city property.
San Diego officials and residents have fought to keep the white cross in place since Phillip Paulsen, an atheist resident backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed suit against the city in 1989.
The San Diego Union-Tribune said a group called San Diegans for the Mount Soledad National War Memorial will likely appeal U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson’s ruling against the city.
Last July, the people of San Diego voted 75% in favour of transferring the land to the federal government, in a ballot initiative by the group, after the city refused to turn the land over to the federal government. It took just 23 days for the group to gather 105,000 signatures.
The United States Congress entered the dispute in 2004 by designating the land beneath the cross as a national veterans memorial. The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan that defends religious freedom for Christians, was instrumental in gaining congressional support for the cross.
There has been a cross on Mount Soledad since 1913. The current cross has been in place as the centre of a war memorial since 1954.
See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:
U.S. Congress Acts to Save Mountain-Top Cross - Atheist Blames 'Jihad Jesus Republicans'
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/nov/04112304.html
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.