U. S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has indicated the high court will hear the Mount Soledad cross case after refusing to do so a few years ago.
For those of you not familiar with this case it involves one of those issues that keeps coming up in our court system, the systematic effort of atheists to remove anything that smacks of religion from public life.
The cross, located at Mount Soledad in San Diego, is the third Soledad cross, with the first dating back to 1913 and lasting 10 years until it was stolen. Its replacement was destroyed in 1952 by high winds. The current cross, which is dedicated to veterans of World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, has been in place since the 1950s.
The cross has been the center of a court battle since 1989 when Vietnam War veteran and atheist Phillip Paulson sued to have it removed, saying its presence violated the separation of church and state required by the U. S. Constitution.
Justice Kennedy indicated a move by Congress to make the cross a national veterans memorial has changed the landscape since the Supreme Court's initial refusal to hear the case.
The lower court decisions against the Soledad cross are a continuation of an effort to totally separate religion from public life. The establishment clause was meant to keep the government from establishing a state religion. In no way should it have any effect whatsoever on this kind of landmark. Religion, whether some want to see it or not, is an integral part of America.
Atheists have every right to have their beliefs (or non-beliefs); they have no right to remove everything that offends them or differs from their views. This is not a case in which the government is trying to force religion down people's throats; it is a symbol dedicated to the sacrifices made by soldiers in three wars.
3 comments:
What to most believers may seem nothing more than a reasonable request that the nonbeliever respect their religious practices, [in some contexts] may appear to the nonbeliever or dissenter to be an attempt to employ the machinery of the State to enforce a religious orthodoxy." 505 U.S. 577 How do we tell the difference? Religious liberty is protected as long as the State leaves its practice to the people.
"The cross was ordered removed in 1991 by U.S. District Court Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. in San Diego federal court. Thompson said the cross was a religious symbol whose presence violated the state Constitution's ban on a government showing a preference for religion."
This case is not about atheists attempting to remove religion from public life. If that were the true agenda every church, synagogue, mosque or other house of worship would be enthralled in a court case.
The California state constitution expressly forbids the government from showing a preference for a religion. A cross clearly shows a preference for Christian religion, just as a Star of David shows a preference for Jewish religion.
The age of the structure is irrelevant. It does not need to be a cross to serve as a memorial to fallen soldiers. The Liberty Memorial in Kansas City is not a religious symbol but is a memorial to war dead. So is The Wall in Washington, D.C.
The point is that government should not sponsor religion or religious preference. A cross clearly does so. Would you be OK if the government erected a Star of David to replace the cross?
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