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The following article was written by Robert Knight and posted on October 22nd on the American Thinker website. If you didn’t hear about this last month, it’s for good reason. The media do not like publicizing defeats for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). A 27-year battle with the ACLU over the Mt. Soledad mountaintop cross at a Korean War veterans memorial in San Diego ended in a victory for American heritage. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a one-page ruling calling the case moot on Sept. 8 and directing U.S. district judge Lawrence Byrne to dismiss it,...

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial Cross case Monday, paving the way for California's lower courts to make a decision before any other legal action is taken in the dispute over religious symbolism on government land in San Diego County. "While we are disappointed the Court did not accept this case for review at this time, we are hopeful we can find a solution that will allow this veterans memorial to remain where it has stood for over half a century," said Allyson Ho, lead counsel for the co-defendant, the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association....

Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas denounced his colleagues’ decision not to hear a case that would have allowed them to establish a clear standard for judging religious displays on government property. “Today the Court rejects an opportunity to provide clarity to an Establishment Clause jurisprudence in shambles,” Thomas said in an Oct. 31 dissent. He explained that the Supreme Court’s disjointed “jurisprudence has confounded the lower courts and rendered the constitutionality of displays of religious imagery on government property anyone’s guess.” Thomas’ dissenting opinion responded to the court’s decision to reject consideration of a prohibition on crosses placed along the...

Three San Diego-area U.S. congressmen have re-entered the Mount Soledad cross fray with a bill that would allow religious symbols to be a part of military monuments. On Wednesday Rep. Duncan Hunter of Alpine introduced the War Memorial Protection Act in response to the federal Ninth Circuit Court’s Jan. 4 ruling, declaring the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial unconstitutional. Joining Hunter as co-sponsors are Congressmen Brian Bilbray of Solana Beach and Darrell Issa of Vista. A cross was first erected atop Mt. Soledad in 1913. It wasn’t until the cross was rebuilt after a 1952 storm that it became a war...

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A federal appeals court has ruled that a San Diego war memorial cross in a public park is unconstitutional. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the 3-0 decision Tuesday in a two-decade dispute over the cross at Mount Soledad. In its decision, the court says the cross conveys a message of government endorsement of religion that violates the Constitution.

This past week the Thomas More Law Center won the latest round against the ACLU in a twenty year legal battle to remove a large cross which stands atop a National memorial cemetery in San Diego. The ruling judge - Larry Alan Burns - wrote: “The Court finds the memorial at Mt. Soledad, including its Latin cross, communicates the primarily non-religious messages of military service, death and sacrifice. As such, despite its location on public land, the memorial is Constitutional.” Assessing the temporal nature of the victory, Richard Thompson from Thomas More said: Sadly, I fully expect the ACLU attorneys...

The giant cross atop Mount Soledad can stay, a federal judge ruled yesterday. The La Jolla landmark has been the subject of nearly 20 years of litigation, public votes and legislative maneuvers as critics complain it's unconstitutional to have a religious symbol on public land. But yesterday, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns said the cross – visible for miles – has become a memorial to veterans, and its secular message outweighs any religious meaning. “The Court finds the memorial at Mt. Soledad, including its Latin cross, communicates the primarily non-religious messages of military service, death, and sacrifice,” Burns wrote. As...

The giant cross atop Mount Soledad can stay, a federal judge ruled yesterday. The La Jolla landmark has been the subject of nearly 20 years of litigation, public votes and legislative maneuvers as critics complain it's unconstitutional to have a religious symbol on public land. But yesterday, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns said the cross – visible for miles – has become a memorial to veterans, and its secular message outweighs any religious meaning. “The Court finds the memorial at Mt. Soledad, including its Latin cross, communicates the primarily non-religious messages of military service, death, and sacrifice,” Burns wrote. As...

A California man who sued in federal court seeking to have a congressional decision nullified and a veterans’ memorial cross on Mt. Soledad removed has lost on both counts, giving hope to memorial defenders the 18-year legal odyssey for the site soon will be over. “We are very pleased with the court’s decision and are hopeful that this epic legal battle will soon be resolved,” said Pete Lepiscopo, of San Diego, an affiliate attorney for The Pacific Justice Institute, which has worked on amicus briefs in the case. “There is a reason the U.S. Supreme Court, Congress, and the president...

Last week's decision by the 9th Circuit Court to remove a solitary Roman cross from a World War I veterans memorial in California's Mojave Desert has drawn an angry response from the American Legion, a major association of U.S. veterans. "Today's lawyers and judges are outlawing the values and religious symbols that the Founding Fathers revered and proclaimed as the very foundation of the American republic," Conatser, head of the 2.7 million-member American Legion, said in a recent press release. "Today it's a memorial. Tomorrow, these same judges can order the removal of crosses on veterans gravestones, the dismissal of...

A federal judge said yesterday that the city of San Diego must pay more than $900,000 in legal fees to the attorney for Philip Paulson, the atheist who sued over the presence of the Mount Soledad cross on city land. U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. ordered that the city pay lawyer James McElroy $962,673.28 for his work on the case over the past four years. Thompson is the same judge who ruled in 1991 that the cross on city land violated the state constitution's ban on government preference for religions – a ruling that touched off an epic legal...

ANN ARBOR, MI – The California Supreme Court, yesterday, affirmed the precedent-setting decision of a California appellate court, which upheld the right of the people of San Diego to transfer the Mt. Soledad veterans memorial and cross to the federal government. At the same time, the Court denied the ACLU’s attempt to prevent the publication of the lower court decision favorable to the cross and veterans memorial. The ACLU was seeking to have the decision suppressed so that it would not be used against them in future lawsuits.

WASHINGTON – With President Bush's signature on a bill that transfers the Mount Soledad cross to federal control, the 17-year parochial battle over the memorial could become a national cause for supporters and foes of religious symbols on public property. In an Oval Office ceremony yesterday, the president signed a bill by three San Diego-area congressmen that immediately transfers the war memorial to the U.S. Defense Department in an effort to avoid a court-ordered removal of the cross, versions of which have towered over La Jolla on and off for nearly a century. Bush was joined by supporters of the...

From the 9th Circuit: Opinion1. The appeal by the City of the district court's May 3, 2006 order (the one that said the city must rip down the cross by Aug. 1, 2006 or face a $5,000/day fine) to enforce a December 3, 1991 injunction under California constitutional authority is dismissed as moot. 2. The appeal of the district court's denial of intervention, filed by the San Diegans for the Mt. Soledad National War Memorial, is also dismissed as moot. 3....

I need some help from those of you in pajamas. My husband and I heard on the Roger Hedgecock show the other day that the well-known litigious atheist Michael Newdow has died. Neither of us can find anything on this in any main-stream media outlet and are starting to suspect either another suspicious lack of reporting, or that both of us suffered simultaneous auditory hallucinations. Has anyone encountered any information on this? We are also contacting the show to follow up, but have not yet received a response. This may not be big news, but down here in San Diego...

Philip Kevin Paulson, who fought a 17-year legal battle to remove the Mount Soledad cross from public property, died Wednesday of liver cancer. He was 59. Paulson, a 6-foot-5 Vietnam veteran who lived in City Heights, became so passionate about the separation of church and state that he filed a civil lawsuit against the city of San Diego in 1989 without an attorney. He won the case, and as the appeals dragged on he became one of the county's most reviled and respected characters. The CrossTypical Memorial Plaque around base During interviews with The San Diego Union-Tribune in September and...

by Charles S. LiMandri Other Articles by Charles S. LiMandri 9/11 in Perspective: Thomas More — A Man for This Season 09/11/06 In 1929, G.K. Chesterton said, “Blessed Thomas More is more important at this moment than at any moment since his death, even perhaps the great moment of his dying; but he is not quite so important as he will be in about 100 years’ time.” In This Article...Conflict of Interest?Threats Within and WithoutIn God’s Hands Conflict of Interest? The prophetic import of Chesterton’s words has become increasingly poignant in our own time. My introduction to Thomas More came, as...

Philip Paulson, who sued the city of San Diego 17 years ago to force the removal of the Mount Soledad cross from public property, has been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. Paulson, 59, and his lawyer, James McElroy, said yesterday they plan to add another plaintiff to the case so that it may continue. Like Paulson, the new plaintiff, Steve Trunk, is a Vietnam war veteran, an atheist and the product of a religious upbringing. “I'm deeply saddened to hear about Phil's health,” McElroy said. “He's been a very courageous man in my eyes to stand up against such difficult...

An individual from San Diego who is "discomfited" over a veterans' memorial has prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to renew its attack on the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial. The Thomas More Law Center said yesterday it is preparing to defend the cross memorial from a new attack by the ACLU, this time in U.S. District Court in California. A 17-year-long battle apparently reached a conclusion earlier this month when Congress approved and President Bush signed legislation giving ownership and control of the memorial to the federal government. That essentially should have ended a state case over the monument that...

The ACLU today filed a federal lawsuit in its latest attempt to drive all reference to faith from the public square. In what is a smart PR move on the ACLU's part, they've brought a group called the Jewish War Veterans on as a plaintiff along with "local residents." So what was once a case that pitted a lone rabid atheist gadfly against an entire city and the largest veterans organization in the country...and oh, yeah the fallen heroes that the memorial was erected to honor...the ACLU has done what it does best and turned it into inter-faith strife, as...