9th Circuit topples Mojave desert cross

firstamendmentcenter.org ^ | Wednesday, June 16, 2004 | Associated Press

[risk]

9th Circuit topples Mojave desert cross

By The Associated Press
06.08.04

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that an 8-foot cross in the Mojave National Preserve is an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion.

Ruling 3-0 in Buono v. Norton, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court that had ruled against the cross, which has become both a war memorial and a place of worship at a Southern California desert site known as Sunrise Rock.

The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a retired National Park Service employee who objected to the religious symbolism of the steel-pipe structure, which sits about 10 miles south of Interstate 15 between Las Vegas and Barstow.

The cross, the subject of constant attack by vandals, was constructed in 1934 by a group of World War I veterans. According to a plaque they placed nearby, the cross was intended as a memorial, but has since attracted Christian worshipers.

The cross has been covered by a heavy tarp after a federal judge in Riverside sided with the ACLU in 2002, ruling that the "primary effect of the presence of the cross" was to "advance religion."

The San Francisco-based appeals court, however, did not indicate whether the cross must be immediately removed or whether it can remain covered pending new appeals.

"We think this opinion makes it clear that the government has an obligation to take down the cross as soon as possible," said Peter Eliasberg, an ACLU attorney.

The park service did not return calls seeking comment yesterday on whether it would ask the 9th Circuit to reconsider, appeal to the Supreme Court or drop its appeals and remove the cross.

Sixty years after the cross was constructed, Congress in 1994 declared the 1.6 million-acre area, which is covered with Joshua trees, a national preserve under the National Park Service's jurisdiction.

The park service, however, defended the cross in court, saying the outcropping it rests on was being transferred to a local Veterans of Foreign Wars post in exchange for five acres of privately held land near the preserve, which is in San Bernardino County.

Congress has also declared the site a war memorial.

The government told the court that the pending land transfer made the case moot.

But the appeals court said the transfer could take years, meaning that the cross was still on public land. Judge Alex Kozinski, a Reagan appointee, said that, even if the land was transferred, the cross may still be a government endorsement of religion.

In ruling against the government, Kozinski noted that the park service has not opened the cross site to other permanent displays, religious or not. In 1999, the park service rejected an application for a monument to Buddha near the cross.

Previous
Park Service covers California desert cross
Justice Department recommended action while it appeals federal judge's ruling ordering removal of Christian symbol from Mojave National Preserve site. 03.15.03

[hattend]

Wow, scary reading, thanks for the link

[Nowhere Man]

I'm beginning to think Michael Savage is right, bring on the RICO statues against the ACLU and put 'em out of business that way. Heck, maybe we can apply RICO to the 9th Circus, whaddya think?

[risk]

Savage says that? That's intense. No, I trust that the Supreme Court is going to find these clowns out of line. In our free, civilized system of adversarial justice, fighting the ACLU is going to require us to appoint justices who are more skeptical about their (normally) frivolous lawsuits. Justice in this country is a reflection of the men and women our elected leaders appoint for us. Therefore, this is our fault to a large extent.

The American people need to wake up. Our courts are being used as a weapon of mass destruction against our culture. Good laws that should normally protect us from tyranny are being twisted to suggest that our culture must be reshaped.

They frame the arguments and the justices look at our laws and get confused. As to how we can protect the monument once its legal basis has been restored, I don't know. Maybe RICO could apply to the roving bands of thugs who keep defacing it?

[tame]

thanks for the ping. This crap makes me sick...SICK!!!

[bmwcyle]

[risk]

To fight this in a principled manner is not going to be easy. But fight it we must. That cross neither represents an establishment of religion, nor an insult to others. The twisted logic that could lead men to believe such dissonant thinking is beyond words. Those men who died for us -- of many faiths -- were fighting for religious freedom against an imperialist Austro-Hungarian empire that was allied with the second Caliphate, the Ottoman empire. If those men had failed, we might well have been subjegated to Islam today, right here in America. Religious freedom is worth defending, and so is the separation of religion and state. But the removal of religion from our culture, which is clearly what the ACLU has won the license to do here, is self-destructive and a tyrannical imposition of amnesia on us as a people. I cannot be ignored.