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The initiative rescinded an earlier vote by the council that would have removed it.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.
Responses like yours give liberals the ammunition they need to claim that conservatives are stupid hicks. Why don't you engage in intelligent debate?
You asked "How is erecting a religious symbol on public property establishing a religion? "
The only objects erected on public lands are those that are approved or endorsed by the government. A large cross, to the exclusion of symbols from other religions, implies that the government endorses only that one religion.
The only objects erected on public lands are those that are approved or endorsed by the government. A large cross, to the exclusion of symbols from other religions, implies that the government endorses only that one religion.
It implies no such thing.
Before your response to me, I never before heard of you. That is a good thing. What a nasty first response. I just read a few of your posts and have decided that I don't think I like you, don't particularly care to speak with you, and certainly would never buy you a beer.
That having been said, you will get this one response. HAD YOU READ THIS before making a foolish comment, perhaps one or two people on this forum, such as MurryMom, would actually believe you are intelligent as you think you are.
Our newbie "friend" citizenmike likes to question others' intelligence and call them crazy. On one of his posts, he said "I like to argue." That explains it. He likes to hear himself argue. Mental masturbation. Blah blah blah blah blah. I'm citizenmike and I'm important because I say so. Provide proof that I'm not! I have a feeling he will not be a really welcome guest at FReeps.
We did vote to sell the cross and the land. The sale was deemed to be unconstitutional.
Here is more background. This issue has been going around for years.
The cross was constructed by the Mount Soledad Memorial Association and dedicated to military veterans in 1954. In 1991, the federal court ruled the presence of the cross on public property violated the California Constitution. To cure the violation, the City sold a portion of parkland surrounding the cross to the Association. The City Charter requires such a sale of parkland be authorized by a two-thirds vote of the electorate. The citizens of San Diego provided this authority in 1992 when 76% of the voters approved Proposition F, which authorized the City to sell a portion of Mount Soledad to maintain the historic war memorial.
The federal court subsequently found the sale of the property to the Association violated provisions of the California Constitution prohibiting government support of religion. The City then conducted a second sale of parkland around the cross, this time by a competitive bid process. The Association was the highest bidder, and, after taking possession of the property, built a memorial composed of granite plaques honoring veterans.
In a recent decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the conduct of the second sale to the Association violated the California Constitution. The decision also indicated the sale may be void and constitutional issues associated with the previous passage of Proposition F in 1992 may invalidate the proposition.
Last November’s Proposition K was intended to fix the situation. However, arguably misleading ballot statements lead to voter confusion. Proposition K subsequently failed to muster the two-thirds majority and left the integrity of the memorial in jeopardy.
On November 20, 2004, the US Congress adopted H.R. 4818 (P.L. 108-447) to which San Diego Congressmen Duncan Hunter and Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham attached language, then signed into law by President Bush, authorizing the federal government to take over the control and protection of the entire war memorial in San Diego should the City donate the property to the Federal Government.
When people register legitimate complaints that the crosses offend them - which isn't going to happen. Why don't you come up with an intelligent objection.
I wonder why our Founding Fathers didn't think to include a "Lemon Test" in the Constitution in regard to the Establishment Clause. Maybe they felt, and rightly so, that Americans were intelligent enough to understand the rather plain language used in the Constitution. I find it curious that it wasn't until the middle of the 20th century that a court felt the "need" to tell all of us what the First Amendment really means.
But was this endorsement done by way of a law being made, as stated in the First Amendment to the Constitution?
You have a point, but if you follow this line of reasoning, we'll have to pull up every cross in that veterans' cemetery on the grounds of Robert E. Lee's mansion in D.C.. What's the name of that place? I need more coffee. Well, it's early.
Arlington, sleepyhead.
Regarding the First Amendment, you are ignoring the intent of the Founders and will of the People. This is most clearly evident when examining the inspiration for the Constitutional Bill of Rights, the Virginia Declaration of Rights.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
- Article I, Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America, December 15, 1791
"That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practise Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other."
- Section XIV, Viriginia Declaration of Rights, June 12, 1776
The Bill of Rights was a heavily abbreviated version of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Every representative understood its language as structured to prevent government from espousing a particular form of Christianity as being the one and only officially recognized one. Modern attempts to frame it as implying a separation of church and state (a twisting of Jefferson's words in a letter and not even a direct quote) diminish the Constitution. If any branch of the Federal government can choose to ignore the original intent of our country's founders and the People's will by simply 'interpreting' the Constitution to mean what it wants, then what "rights" do we truly have?
Error: I switched characters. The section from the Virginia Declaration of Rights is "XVI", not "XIV".
"On every question of construction of the Constitution, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."--Thomas Jefferson
Putting a religious symbol of any sort on public property is not establishing a religion, as it does not require anyone to pray, attend a religious institution nor does it remove any rights from those who don't agree with a religious symbol. The paranoia over a cross in a city's seal or on a hill for all to see is patently absurd. To ignore the Judeo-Christian roots of our nation is to ignore the entire concept of inalienable rights.
"I'm an American in the softhead naive European Union. I see myself as a centrist villified by both political orthodoxies in the US and by pretty much all political orthodoxies in Europe. I'm about 55% conservative and 45% liberal; I'm mostly a social liberal and an economic conservative.
I'm originally from the great state of TEXAS, but I have been living in the EU for many years now. I visit as often as I can, and my husband and I are returning to Texas later this year. I can't wait to get out of this socialist hellhole. "
needsomereason, I'm interested in what you think makes EU a "socialist hellhole."
Where you live now, do the people have the same problem like this one of religious symbols on public property?
A personal question, are you a military dependant?
You need to get your head out of your ass. You ever see Arlington? That's sure is a large bit of public property full of Crosses and Stars of David. You with the ACLU on this one too?
"Our Founding Fathers seem to have intentionally avoided any mention of "god" in our constitution"
You haven't actually read the document, have you?
Have you read the Declaration of Independance either?
Federal law supercedes state law in areas of law where the federal government has jurisdiction. But state laws cannot be arbitrarily trampled on by the federal government.
Transferring the land where the cross is located to private ownership would be the best solution. Trnasferring the land to federal ownership is just setting up for a lawsuit down the road.
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