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Following 10-plus years of legal conflict thanks to a nuisance lawsuit filed in 2001 by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a federal judge has finally ruled that a cross placed in the Mojave Desert in 1934 to honor World War I veterans may remain there permanently. In the settlement approved April 23, the National Park Service will turn over the hilltop area known as Sunrise Rock, upon which the simple cross sat before being removed by the park service, in return for the private donation of five acres elsewhere in the 1.6 million acre preserve in Southern California. The...

Mojave Cross replaced, then removed By BEN GOAD and DUG BEGLEY The Press-Enterprise The Mojave Cross saga took yet another unexpected turn Thursday, when the contested symbol that vanished last week reappeared briefly before being taken down by federal officials. National Park Service officials learned Thursday morning that a cross again was on top of Sunrise Rock, about 10 miles south of Interstate 15 near Cima Road, a sparsely traveled route into the Mojave National Preserve. It's about 30 miles east of Baker. Some version of the cross has stood there for 75 years as a tribute to fallen World...

Mojave Cross replica is removed after mysteriously appearing overnight 11:18 PM PDT on Thursday, May 20, 2010 By BEN GOAD and DUG BEGLEY The Press-Enterprise The Mojave Cross saga took yet another unexpected turn Thursday, when the contested symbol that vanished last week reappeared briefly before being taken down by federal officials. National Park Service officials learned Thursday morning that a cross again was on top of Sunrise Rock, about 10 miles south of Interstate 15 near Cima Road, a sparsely traveled route into the Mojave National Preserve. It's about 30 miles east of Baker.

New York, NY, August 4, 2009 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called on the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a "sham transaction" and prohibit a prominent religious display on public land. In an amicus brief submitted to the Court in Salazar v. Buono, ADL and a coalition of civil rights groups also emphasized the importance of allowing Americans access to courts to challenge violations of the First Amendment. Marvin D. Nathan, ADL Civil Rights Committee Chair, issued the following statement:

WASHINGTON – It's a war memorial. It includes a cross. It is on public land. And while politicians use congressional maneuvers to keep the cross there, others say it's unconstitutional and should be removed. This sounds a lot like the cross atop Mount Soledad in La Jolla, but it's not. About 275 miles away in the Mojave Desert stands a far less prominent but nonetheless controversial cross that, like the Mount Soledad cross, has been the subject of lawsuits and court-ordered removals. Unlike Mount Soledad, however, the battle surrounding the desert cross at a place called Sunrise Rock has focused...

...Atop that hill stands a six-foot cross.... That dusty hilltop and its lonely marker just might become the scene of the most significant church-state controversy since last year's fight over the Pledge of Allegiance. In 1934, a gritty prospector named J. Riley Bembry gathered a couple of his fellow World War I veterans at Sunrise Rock. Together they erected the cross, in honor of their fallen comrades. The memorial has been privately maintained ever since.... A wrinkle developed in 1994, when the federal government declared the surrounding area a national preserve. With the cross now located on newly public land,...