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The initiative rescinded an earlier vote by the council that would have removed it.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.
You said in post 2: "Our Founding Fathers seem to have intentionally avoided any mention of "god" in our constitution"
You were shown that the Founders mentioned God all the time.
And still you ramble on with your fallacy.
Who's pathetic then?
What enrages me is his lofty attitude about our veterans and dead. Typical know-it-all know-nothing ivory tower blue state mentality.
Yes, and quite typical -unfortunately- of my generation.
He's the same age as I am as indicated in his post 150.
I guess the difference being that in 1980 when I went to school, we still had a moment of silence for our war dead, and said the Pledge fo Allegiance.
Willing to bet he went to one of the few places that didn't at the time.
Sometimes it seems this whole country is just nuts
Sometimes, I fear that assessment is correct.
"Aometimes"?
Heck, let me rephrase that since I just read what Ruth Bader-Ginsberg said on her ideas of foreign law being a better standard than US law when deciding Constitutionality of US law.
I fear that it currently IS correct.
thank you for the reply!:)
Welcome to FreeRepublic. What is wrong with some of who who have to frame a question by being insulting and condescending? That's not a good way to get a serious answer from me.
This sounds series.
Perhaps even hugh.
I just read your post No. 101 to Darksheare. Would it be too much for me to ask you to stay in the EU? That is where you belong.
It is easy to feign offense. Oh, I am just so offended by that. It has to go. It has to go because I say so. The NOW cows are good at that. People who are easily offended by the things that don't impact them, but want to exercise the power to take them away from others are narcissistic scum.
There is a Judeo/Christian heritage in this great nation. It is under assault, and specious arguments are made in the name of separation of church and state. The government declaring an official religion of the United States to the exclusion of all others is not what this country has done. When our government plans to do that, I will listen to the argument and join those to whom I now refer as narcissistic scum. Until then, I will fight to retain our traditions and symbols. Our founders never intended for the government to prevent religious expression.
Let the people of San Diego vote. May the tyranny of the small minority not prevail.
He probably wn't stay over there.
He likes his fromage and white flag waving too much.
Apparently not for the 2nd amendment.
Obviously, you do not understand English.
"It's" also is used as a possessive.
It is not incorrect, but it is clunky and awkward.
If you want to try to pretend to have a brain, how about studying US History instead of revisionist lies?
At least then you can attest to having read something of worth.
But that goes counter to your fallacious claims.
Nevermind that the Pilgrims came here for religious freedom, nevermind the reasons behind the American Revolution.
Nevermind that back then, if the King was Catholic you had to be Catholic, and if he was Protestant -you had to be also.
The idea that there was religious freedom where God could be worshipped in the manner of one's choosing, that people could be either Catholic or Protestant as they so chose rather than by dictate of the King was radical.
And God most certainly was foremost on the minds of the founders when they penned the Constitution.
Oh, but revisionism is much more important to you.
After all, you're oh so much more enlightened and know so much more about the mentality and attitudes of men 200 years ago.
Nevermind that people who claimed as you do were ostracised to say the least back then.
Did I miss something? I could have sworn I voted on this just before I left. If I had a dollar for every time this issue has resurfaced on our ballots, I'd be a rich FReeper.
He still continues on though.
He cites revisionist sources in one post and then tries to claim victory.
*snort*
He doesn't know history even a fourth as well as he would like to claim.
Don't get discouraged. We just need to demand more conservatism from our Representatives. Look at the current situation as a warning.
Already do.
Just wish a good portion of the people I know in real life would actually bother to look at history and the original documents instead of buying the hog wallow they've been sold over the years.
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