Free Republic

The city will petition the U.S. Supreme Court in a drive to exhaust every legal avenue before removing a giant concrete cross from public property on Aug. 1, the city attorney said Thursday. The city will ask the high court to review Wednesday's decision by a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel to turn down the city's request to stay a federal court decision against the cross. U.S. District Court Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. found in May that the city was demonstrating an unconstitutional endorsement of one religion over others by maintaining the 29-foot cross in a municipal hilltop...

The federal judge who ordered the removal of the Mount Soledad cross from city parkland yesterday rejected a bid by a private group to join the litigation, saying its efforts to save the cross come “much too late.” The decision means that San Diegans for the Mount Soledad National War Memorial cannot appeal the judge's decision ordering the city to remove the 29-foot concrete cross by Aug. 1 or pay $5,000 daily fines. The group was behind Proposition A, a public vote last summer to donate the cross to the federal government for a national park. It says it wants...

Ruling on a 15-year-old ACLU case, a federal judge today ordered the city of San Diego to remove a mountain-top cross within 90 days or face a fine of $5,000 a day.U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson said, "It is now time, and perhaps long overdue, for this court to enforce its initial permanent injunction forbidding the presence of the Mount Soledad cross on city property," the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Mt. Soledad cross and veterans memorial above San Diego (soledadmemorial.com) Ruling on a 15-year-old ACLU case, a federal judge today ordered the city of San Diego to remove a mountain-top cross within 90 days or face a fine of $5,000 a day. U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson said, "It is now time, and perhaps long overdue, for this court to enforce its initial permanent injunction forbidding the presence of the Mount Soledad cross on city property," the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Thompson ruled in 1991 the Mount Soledad cross violates the so-called "separation of church and state" but the...

federal judge on Wednesday ordered the removal of the Mount Soledad cross from property owned by the city of San Diego within 90 days or he will fine the city $5,000 a day. “It is now time, and perhaps long overdue, for this court to enforce its initial permanent injunction forbidding the presence of the Mount Soledad cross on city property,” said U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson. Thompson first found the presence of the cross on city property unconstitutional in 1991 because it violated the separation of church and state. Since then, his order, and the issue of the cross,...