A
three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a unanimous
decision in 2011, after many years of contentions litigation, declaring a 29
foot tall Christian cross erected on public land is unconstitutional because it
conveys a message of government endorsement of religion in clear violation of
the First Amendment Establish Clause.
In
2012, the Supreme Court refused to take the case. Thus the decision of the
federal Circuit Court of Appeals is final and constitutes the settled law of
the case, right?
Wrong,
several Republican U.S. Congressmen are insisting
today. That’s because when it comes to their own privately held Christian religion
they have no problem whatsoever with violating their solemn oaths to uphold the
Constitution, including the First Amendment.
They’re
Christians and they want to nullify the Establishment Clause.
The
Court of Appeals noted that this same huge Christian cross was dedicated on
Easter Sunday in La Jolla, CA, and used for religious gatherings on public
government property for nearly three decades before it became part of a memorial
dedicated in 1954 in honor of Korean War veterans. It also acknowledged that the
community of La Jolla has a "well-documented history" of
anti-Semitism from the 1920s to around 1970.
Never-the-less,
instead of simply removing the cross from public property as the court has
ordered; instead of perhaps erecting it elsewhere in a private setting where no
one would object to it, the American Center for Law and Justice filed a brief in
U.S. District Court on behalf of 18 GOP members of Congress in yet another legal
effort to have the court ignore the Establishment Clause.
ACLJ
Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow said putting the memorial in the hands of a private
nonprofit group, the Mount Soledad Memorial Association, would be an
appropriate alternative to removing the memorial's cross. "We're urging
the court to permit a private organization to obtain and operate the war
memorial – a remedy that would remove any constitutional questions and protect
this longstanding tribute to our men and women in uniform," says Sekulow.
City
officials maintain that this Christian cross is part of a secular war memorial embraced
by San Diego area residents who in 2005 overwhelmingly approved a measure to
preserve it by donating it to the federal government.
They
actually believe that a Christian cross sends a secular message and that the
religious display is OK if they’ve donated it to the federal government. So
they donated just that part of the land under the cross to the federal
government, but simply can’t understand now why the courts have said that ruse doesn’t
render the display constitutional.
Religionists
will do anything to try to get around the Establishment Clause.
Officials
for the city of DeLand, Fla., for example, are also fighting
to keep a Christian cross displayed prominently on their city seal despite the
fact that the religious symbol constitutes a clear endorsement of religion by
the city in violation of the Establishment Clause.
"This
is an intrusion of religion into the world of government," explained Rabbi
Merrill Shapiro, president of the Flagler County chapter of Americans United
for Separation of Church and State. "And the world of government and
the world of religion should be separate as called for in the First Amendment
of the United States constitution.”When the government establishes a
Christian cross as part of its official seal, it tends to make non-Christians
feel "like second-class citizens."
Not
surprisingly, the City is taking the position that a Christian cross is not
religious. "Nothing in the history of the city's seal suggests that it
was adopted to promote any particular religion or even religion in
general," declared DeLand City Attorney Darren Elkind.
Christian
crosses are not religious symbols.
Christian
crosses are secular symbols.
That’s
the type of excuses we get when religiously oriented lawmakers fight perpetually
to nullify the Establishment Clause.
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