Posted on 10/05/2009 5:49:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
General Douglas MacArthur famously noted that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away." Sometimes, though, before they fade away, they get angry. And a case being argued in the Supreme Court Wednesday has veterans seeing red, white, and blue-but mostly red.
Unsurprisingly, the case will go to the court courtesy of an ACLU lawsuit.
The object at the center of the case is a small, unadorned cross sitting in a remote part of the Mojave Desert Preserve in Southeast California. A veterans' group erected this memorial cross on private land in 1934 to honor the dead of all wars.
Driving by this secluded location today, however, you'll see a curious-looking plywood box hiding the memorial, the way someone might cover a condemned building. That box is there because one person filed suit, with the help of ACLU attorneys, claiming he was "offended" by the memorial cross. One offended man has somehow trumped the wishes of millions of veterans.
If a federal appeals court has its way, the box and the memorial soon will be gone forever. Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court will review the ruling at the request of the Department of Justice, and in this case, millions of veterans, speaking through The American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, have added their voices in support. In fact, the American Legion Department of California and the Alliance Defense Fund have joined forces and filed a brief in support of the Department of Justice, asking the Supreme Court to dismiss the lawsuit.
The U.S. Government recently acquired the land on which the memorial sits when the site became part of the Mojave Federal Preserve. After the ACLU lawsuit was filed, Congress worked with veterans to honor their wishes and preserve the monument. It took an act of Congress to rescue the memorial from a federal court decision ordering its destruction. As part of its action, Congress voted to give an acre of land containing the memorial back to the veterans who maintained it for decades, in exchange for five acres deeded to the government. Giving up one acre to get five, and honoring veterans in the process, seemed like a good deal.
But not to the ACLU and its "offended" client.
To them, even this reasonable arrangement was intolerable. They pressed forward with their lawsuit saying the memorial must not be allowed to stand and the land transfer must be overturned; their hostility to a passive symbol of this sort is simply too great.
However, as bad as this case is, veterans know much more is at stake in this case than one memorial in the California desert.
Military memorials commonly use the cross as part of a display to honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to defend our nation. While the cross is a religious symbol, the military has also used it as a symbol of courage, sacrifice, and honor. For example, the nation's second highest military award is the Distinguished Service Cross. Visitors to the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery can see several commemorative crosses, like the Canadian Cross of Sacrifice, a gift from former Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King that was dedicated at Arlington in 1927.
If the Supreme Court does not overturn the appeals court, religious symbols that have graced monuments for many decades may become a thing of the past. Memorials to military veterans, police officers, firefighters, and other heroes will be whitewashed, covered up, or torn out to appease the politically correct agenda of intolerant extremists.
Veterans are being asked to surrender to the thin-skinned sensitivity of an individual who has managed to be offended by a small memorial, literally in the middle of a desert. Is this truly an offense worthy of a lawsuit? Apparently, the fanatical agenda of the ACLU to expunge religious symbols has really come this far, and now the Supreme Court has the opportunity to weigh in.
One person's offense should not diminish the sacrifice made by America's heroes and their families. Why would we not wish to allow the men and women who have served and defended this nation to choose how they wish to honor their dead? Even if old soldiers "fade away," their memory should not.
I'd like to meet that "one person".
One on one, so to speak.
The Cross is the symbol of salvation. It is an EXCLUSIONARY symbol in that it states that you must believe in Jesus and His sacrifice in order to be saved. Even though no one is excluded from making this choice, those who choose not to ARE excluded.
Obviously, this is offensive. It reminds those who choose to reject God’s gift of grace that they are condemned. The world hated Noah (and his project) for the same reason.
2 Cor 2:15-16
15 For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?
You’d think ACLU and the complainant would have something better to do. Evidently not.
I’m no lawyer but it seems to me that the US Government can sell/trade/transfer land that it owns as it sees fit...particularly when such a small *amount* of land is in question.If I’m correct then the ACLU doesn’t have....*wait for it*....A PRAYER in this case.
The court should simply rule that the case is without merit and send the bill to the original complainant!
Vampires of the Left: Nothing bothers them like the presence of a cross.
The very same reason that homosexuals demand not your “tolerance” but rather your outright approval.
It will be 5 to 4 in favor of the cross. That to me is the sad thing. You’d think it would be a unanimous decision.
This is one of those instances where “the law” ought to be ignored. Take down the plywood and replace the cross each and every time it’s taken down.
If it was a big phallic instead of a cross the pillow biters would want to make it a national monument.
He is probably George Soros, he helps fund and pushes many of these lawsuits.
ACLU won’t allow this cross to be replaced even though it was taken down by vandals
Redwood cross on Monterey beach cut by vandals
The Associated Press
September 21, 2009
MONTEREY, Calif. — Police say vandals cut down a giant redwood cross at Monterey State Beach that marked the spot where a Spanish explorer is believed to have arrived in 1769.
The 20-foot cross was dedicated almost 40 years ago by the citizens of Monterey to mark the city’s 200th birthday.
It replicated one erected two centuries earlier by a colonial expedition led by Don Gaspar de Portola. Experts say the group probably put up the cross as a beach marker that would easily be seen by ships sailing off the coast.
Monterey police Lt. Randy Roach said the cross was cut down with a power saw Friday night or early Saturday morning.
Because the cross is on a state beach, the investigation will go to state authorities.
Police estimate the damage at $1,000.
Replace the Monterey cross, put up security cameras, beat the hell out of any vandal. I sick of this crap.
Was anything else on the land that went to the private group, or only the cross monument? If the private group’s land included graves that might complicate things. At any rate if it’s clear (by plaque or marker or whatever sign) that the cross and the land on which it sits belongs to a private group, then even under today’s prissy standards the ACLU should go pound sand.
Make that “I’m.” See? I AM sick of this crap.
When you put it that way you make plaintiff's argument for them. Personally, I just thought who cares about a cross in the middle of the desert, and that someone's going out of his way to be offended.
the CLUless surely wouldn’t get upset if a damaged Buddha was restored.
Oh, it IS “just a cross in the middle of a desert”.
The Truth about its symbology is in the eye of the beholder (but inescapable, due the “cosmic” truthfulness of it).
In other words, those who are offended are admitting to the Truth.
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