Constitutional Law

Judge Says Cross On Public Land Doesn't Violate First Amendment

A large Latin cross on a hilltop in San Diego is not going anywhere anytime soon, regardless of the complaints from supporters of the First Amendment principle of the separation of church and state. U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns ruled earlier this week that the cross, part of a federally owned war memorial on Mt. Soledad, “communicates the primarily nonreligious message of military service, death and sacrifice. As such, despite its location on public land, the memorial is constitutional.”

Lawsuits challenging the 29-foot-tall cross, atop a 43-foot base, have been wending their way through the courts since the 1980s. In 2006, President George W. Bush signed a measure turning the land on which the memorial sits over to the federal government. The current lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego argued that the cross on public land represented an endorsement of religion in violation of the First Amendment. The San Diego ACLU, in a statement about Burns’s decision in Trunk v. City of San Diego, said an appeal was possible. David Blair-Loy, the ACLU affiliate’s legal director, told the Los Angeles Times that, “If you want to put a cross on your front lawn … we will be the first to defend you. When the government is sponsoring and endorsing the preeminent sysmbol of one religion, that’s when we have a problem.”

Full post as published by ACS Blog on August 01, 2008 (boomark / email).