Posted on 05/21/2005 9:58:14 PM PDT by BigFinn
The San Diego City Council voted this week to allow voters to decide the fate of the historic Mt. Soledad Cross overlooking the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla.
The vote represented the newest chapter in a long line of legal battles to remove the cross, led by ACLU attorney James McElroy, who represents an atheist seeking to remove the Christian symbol from public lands.
The legal battles date back to 1989.
Essentially, the voters will decide whether they want to transfer the property to the National Park System as a war memorial.
For more than 50 years, the site has been recognized by the public as a place where war veterans are honored for their service to the United States.
The Mt. Soledad Association manages the site where plaques recognize war veterans who served in the last century. Most of the veterans recognized are from the greater San Diego area.
Last November, two Republican congressmen from San Diego County, Rep. Duncan Hunter and Rep. Randy Cunningham, added a provision to an appropriations bill to allow the city to designate the site as a national war memorial.
If the citizens of San Diego agree with this proposal, the site will be maintained by the National Park System. The bill was signed into law by President Bush in December.
Representatives from the Mt. Soledad Association and the park system were in Washington last week to discuss a working plan to manage the site.
Opponents of the transfer, including the ACLU, contend it is illegal and unconstitutional. However, a lawyer for the Thomas More Center, Charles LiMandri, contends there is legal precedent for protecting religious symbols that already are on federal land.
While the debate on religious symbols on public land slowly is working its way through the courts, the proposition to transfer city property to the federal government will be decided by San Diego voters July 26.
San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy, who is leaving office in July, says "it may provoke additional litigation, but some things are worth fighting for."
Murphy was a supporter of a referendum that forced the city council to revisit the issue. The referendum sparked a record 89,000 petitions to request that the cross not be dismantled from its present site.
The initiative rescinded an earlier vote by the council that would have removed it.
The referendum, put together in just a month, was widely supported by San Diego radio talk-show hosts Roger Hedgecock, Rick Roberts and Mark Larson and Los Angeles host Paul McGuire.
Slightly more than 33,000 verified signatures were required for the referendum to be successful, based on a registered voter base of approximately 650,000 voters.
Funny, I used history.
You still haven't offered an argument thta YOU can back.
That explains your general lack of knowledge of teh history of this country.
Go here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1407988/posts?page=117#117
Refutes your fallacy quite well.
When you claim the founders didn't think of God, you are gravely mistaken.
Goes all the way back to the Pilgrims who came to the colonies for religious FREEDOM.
Funny, that would indicate thinking about God.
And they were also our founders.
And if the Declaration were 'irrelevant' as you claim, that means we're still a British Colony, right?
You are sorely mistaken in your beliefs.
History does not back you.
Doc, needsomereason doesn't seem to care much for trying to debate you.
He seems to think my position is less defensible.
He claims the Founders didn't mention God at all to supposedly show a 'wall of separation'.
He believes the revisionist history tripe on that.
Obviously, he forgets his history, or is willfully ignorant of the history of this nation.
"the Declaration of Independence is a historical document, not a legal document. It...and its wording...have relevance to the HISTORY of the United States, but not its statutes and laws. "
Pathetic attempt to dance aside the FACT that it mentions God, and the FACT that THE FOUNDERS wrote it.
It is also the basis for our independance.
Without it, we would still be a colony.
Go brush up on your history.
I'm sure George Washington would be very shocked to hear you say such about the Declaration.
Bunk, you lost.
And you cannot admit it.
Nice revisionist hiostory source.
You forget that George Washington offered prayer for his troops and this country.
You also forget that the Oath of Office is sworn on a Bible, and contains the words "So Help Me GOD."
Twpo minor things you're leaving out.
oopsies for you.
For a newbie you've got a lot of salt.
LOL!
You're the guy who cites revisionist history instead of what the documents say for themselves!
That, and you are leaving out things that still exist such as the OATH OF OFFICE, and documented fact of what the first President did every morning.
You still haven't made an attempt to try and refute the New Windsor Cantonment and the church building that George Washington had built there.
I'm citing documented history.
You're citing modernist revisionism.
I don't see why cities constantly court controversy by putting religious symbols on public land. They MUST know that they're going to get sued, and in many cases rightly so. ......
It was done years ago. Before you tumbled out of your mother's womb. It was done when America was America and was proud of it.
Honestly, I'd say he's a troll.
But that's only because he has no real knowledge of history.
AND for what he said about Arlington.
He still hasn't said flat out whether he wants all the crosses removed from Arlinton.
"We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do establish this Constitution."
"I don't agree with your assessment, mostly because I'm not religious and I disagree with you that the US is "officially" religious." -needsomereason
Basically that says it all about needsomereason.
It furthermore proves that no matter what proofs are placed before him, he will not look at them.
Since he is not 'religious', he believes this nation was never religious nor was founded by people who were religious.
And to think he's going to be 30 this year and be that willfully ignorant of history.
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