Posted on 09/06/2007 7:58:39 PM PDT by zendari
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. government cannot trade a parcel of land to private hands to allow a Christian cross to remain in the middle of a vast federal preserve, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday.
At issue is the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which bars the government from favoring any one religion, as it applies to a lone white metal Latin cross in the Mojave National Preserve in southern California between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
In 2004, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a cross on a prominent rock on public land was unconstitutional, prompting Congress to pass a law allowing a trade so its immediate area would become private land.
People have been putting crosses in the spot since the 1930s, most recently with one man drilling a metal cross into the rock a decade ago without permission. In 1999, a man requested and was denied permission to build a Buddhist shrine there, setting the stage for a tangled legal fight.
"A grave constitutional injury already exists," Judge Margaret McKeown wrote for a three-judge panel that upheld a lower court ruling. "The permitting display of the Sunrise Rock cross in the Preserve is an impermissible governmental endorsement of religion.
"The government's long-standing efforts to preserve and maintain the cross atop Sunrise Rock lead us to the undeniable conclusion that the government's purpose in this case is to evade the injunction and keep the cross in place," the judge said. "Carving out a tiny parcel of property in the midst of this vast Preserve - like a donut hole with the cross atop it - will do nothing to minimize the impermissible governmental endorsement."
This judge, Mckeon, might bemaking her push for a spot on Hillary/Hussein/Edwards's shortlist for the SCOTUS.
She should be tarred, feathered and ridden out of San Fran on a rail (besides the Constitution prohibits jackbooted thugs from the state organs from "prohibiting the free exercise thereof" anyway).
Ah,ha,ha, another liberal interpretation of freedom of religion right ???
Just keep fighting them. They did the same thing against the Mr. Soledad cross in San Diego and the citizens finally won the case. But it took many years and lots of lawyers. If it’s a fight they want you have to give it to them.
The 9th circuit is just so silly.
When are they going to say that the name of their own city, San Francisco, is unconstitutional as well? Don’t they know it commemorates St. Francis , a Catholic saint? Is the state recognizing the Roman Catholic canonization process really “constitutional” in their absurd view?
When will they move to change the name of the town to “Mr. Francisco” or maybe “Mr. Frank” for short?
That is NOT what it says. What it says is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise, thereof"
That's my recollection, not a cut and paste of the words.
Congress is NOT establishing a religion here, nor is it supposed to prevent the free exercise thereof. This is simply another tortured reading of the law by the Liberal Activist courts. All the Constitution says is that the Federal Government cannot ESTABLISH a religion. The absence of further language means THE PEOPLE retain the right to practice their religion, and to determine what they want to do to promote or recognize it. Public land belongs to THE PEOPLE, NOT the Federal Government, and certainly not to the Activist 9th Circus to decide what religious expression they want or do not want.
The 9th circuit is just so silly.
I wish they were just silly. In fact they are a group of judicial liberals that have been sticking their fingers in the eye of our Constitution for a number of years now. While most of the country including the Federal Legislative Branch have rejected many of their rulings they continue to be a pain in the ass to our country. They are the best example as to why judicial term limits in government are necessary !!!
Yep, Mr. Frank might be good for San Francisco, in honor of a major population group there.
At issue is the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which bars the government from favoring any one religion,...........
I really hate to see factual errors in a news story. The establishment clause does not bar the government from favoring any one religion. It bars the government from running a state religion or making laws restricting religious freedom.
Yet Reuters presented their opinion as fact.
They better knock down the Supreme Court builder, it has a statue of Moses engraved into it.
Unfortunately, Reuters is accurately reflecting the current court mutated view of the first amendment.
What are you saying? spell it out loud and clear ???
In short, a literate reporter should be able to read and understand the whole thing, except for a couple arcane points like "letters of marque and reprisal." Reporters ARE literate, aren't they? Or, have they dropped that standard in light of what's coming out of college these days?
Congressman Billybob
Latest article, "Enemies of America, in a Courtroom Near You"
As my mechanic likes to say, "there's your problem."
Ahhh how a once mighty nation has come to be ruled by simpletons.
“governmental endorsement of religion”? And just what religion would that be? Christianity is not a religion, it is a belief. Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics, Jews,etc, etc, etc are religions. The government cannot continue to just throw anything they want out as a religion.
Pornography is protected under Freedom of Speech, but a beautiful Cross is not?
Reuters is a foreign company full of funny little foreign people and they are abysmally ignorant of American law, customs and way of life ~ they should go back where they came from.
OR, “City of Steve”.
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