U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, Jr. (R-50) has introduced legislation that would protect the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial with its landmark cross by allowing “any of 57 religious symbols authorized by the National Cemetery Association, including the Christian cross,” at federal war memorials.
\nReacting to Hunter\u2019s legislation, San Diego attorney Jim McElroy, representing the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is opposed to the cross at the Mt. Soledad War Memorial owned by the federal government, said, “You can\u2019t pass a law that abrogates the U.S. Constitution. For 25 years the courts have ruled that government should not take sides in matters of religion, should not endorse or support one religion over all the other religions.”
\nMcElroy argued there\u2019s a qualitative difference between crosses on individual gravesites and the one at the Mt. Soledad Memorial.
\n“A 40-foot-high, 20-ton cross completely dominates the memorial and sends a message of government endorsement of religion,” he said, adding the problem of the cross\u2019s constitutionality “can only be solved by either moving the cross or having the federal government transfer it in some manner.”
\nThe Soledad cross has been the subject of litigation for 24 years with a lawsuit initiated by the late Philip Paulson, a Vietnam War veteran who alleged that a Christian religious symbol was inappropriate at a public monument.
\nA 2011 ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Soledad cross violated the First Amendment\u2019s ban on government favoring one religion over another.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, Jr. (R-50) has introduced legislation that would protect the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial with its landmark cross by allowing “any of 57 religious symbols authorized by the National Cemetery Association, including the Christian cross,” at federal war memorials. Reacting to Hunter\u2019s legislation, San Diego attorney Jim McElroy, representing the American Civil […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":292123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Mt. Soledad cross once again in the spotlight with proposed legislation","_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-292122","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\/292122","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=292122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}