In a nearly 25-year legal fight that has taken countless twists and turns, a federal judge recently ordered the iconic 29-foot cross atop Mount Soledad Veteran\u2019s Memorial in La Jolla to be moved.
\nIt was the second time the landmark cross, which opponents argue is a Christian symbol constituting an unconstitutional “establishment or endorsement of religion,” has been ordered to come down.
\nIn May 2006, U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson ordered the city to remove the cross from then city-owned property by Aug. 1 of that year or be fined $5,000 a day. Two months later, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy temporarily blocked Thompson\u2019s order. A month later, President George W. Bush signed into law a bill transferring the cross to the Defense Department as a war memorial. That law was subsequently challenged in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Jewish War Veterans and others.
\nIn 2008, U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns ruled the cross could stay. In 2011, however, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Burns\u2019 ruling, finding that the cross, as currently presented and situated, violated the First Amendment.
\nThe 9th Circuit didn\u2019t, however, order the cross to be dismantled. Instead, it offered the defendants an opportunity to alter the monument in some unspecified way so that it no longer violated the law. Litigants have attempted, unsuccessfully, to do just that.
\nOver the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has twice declined to hear the Soledad cross case. But the highest court in the land has hinted that it remained open to hearing the case after the trial court had taken up the 9th Circuit Court\u2019s suggestion to look for alternatives.
\nProponents of keeping the cross “where it is, as it is,” said they\u2019ll challenge this latest legal attempt to move the Soledad cross.
\n“It\u2019s unfortunate that the 9th Circuit left the judge no choice but to order the tearing down of the Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial Cross,” said Bruce Bailey, president of the Mount Soledad Memorial Association (MSMA). “However, we are grateful for the judge\u2019s stay that gives us an opportunity to fight this all the way to Supreme Court.”
\nThe U.S. Supreme Court is exactly where the Soledad cross case could \u2014 and likely will \u2014 end up, said Glenn Smith, professor of Constitutional Law at California Western School of Law in San Diego.
\n“The cross is one of those things that has taken on a symbolic significance that far exceeds this particular set of facts, that\u2019s why the issue has taken on such life,” Smith said.
\nThe legal battle over the landmark cross is far from over, Smith said.
\n“I fully expect that Judge Burns\u2019 decision will be appealed to the 9th Circuit, and I would expect the 9th Circuit to affirm Judge Burns\u2019 decision, and that it will again be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court,” he said. “This is likely to be the last round. Then, in two or three years, we\u2019ll definitely have a resolution.”
\nMount Soledad veterans have secured the support of the Liberty Institute, a nonprofit legal group dedicated to defending and restoring religious liberty, in its continuing fight to keep the cross on its La Jolla mountaintop site.
\n“We will continue to fight for this memorial and the selfless sacrifice and service of all the millions of veterans it represents,” said Hiram Sasser, Liberty Institute litigation director. “It is the least we can do for those who gave so much to us all.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a nearly 25-year legal fight that has taken countless twists and turns, a federal judge recently ordered the iconic 29-foot cross atop Mount Soledad Veteran\u2019s Memorial in La Jolla to be moved. It was the second time the landmark cross, which opponents argue is a Christian symbol constituting an unconstitutional “establishment or endorsement of […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":260576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Soledad cross controversy renewed after judicial order","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}