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Battle Over Mt. Soledad Memorial Cross Heats Up President Bush Supports Cross; House Passes Bill To Preserve It; Senate Bill Introduced - ACLU Continues Its Campaign to Stop It
ANN ARBOR, MI – The Bill to protect the Mt. Soledad memorial cross, H. R. 5863, overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 349-74. The Bill transfers possession of the veterans memorial in San Diego, California to the federal government. The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, worked closely with Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA), the main sponsor of the Bill, on the language of the legislation.
Over the last two years, the Law Center has been working tirelessly to preserve the veterans memorial from the attack of ACLU-backed atheist Philip Paulson, who filed a lawsuit in 1989 to remove the memorial cross. In addition to supporting this bill, the Law Center is directly involved in both state court and federal court appeals on behalf of San Diegans for the Mt. Soledad National War Memorial, the organization that played a major role in the hugely successful petition drive to transfer the land on which the memorial sits to the federal government.
Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel for the Law Center, commended a number of organizations that have joined the fight to keep the memorial cross, including the American Legion Department of California, represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, the American Center for Law and Justice, which filed an amicus brief on behalf of several Congressmen, and the American Family Association.
Commented Thompson, “The overwhelming support for this bill demonstrates that the ACLU and the liberal judges who support the ACLU’s anti-Christian agenda are out of touch with America. No doubt, the ACLU will return to its liberal judges to try to undo, once again, the democratic process and the will of the people. However, an effective coalition of veterans groups, political leaders, and public interest organizations is developing to stop them.”
President Bush, on the day of the vote, issued a “Statement of Administration Policy” that “strongly” supported H.R. 5683. The Statement read, in part, “In the face of legal action threatening the continued existence of the current Memorial, the people of San Diego have clearly expressed their desire to keep the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial in its present form. Judicial activism should not stand in the way of the people, and the Administration commends Rep. Hunter for his efforts in introducing this bill.”
Over the past two years, the Law Center has provided thousands of attorney hours without charge to preserve the memorial cross from destruction by the ACLU-backed atheist Paulson. Charles LiMandri, the west coast director of the Thomas More Law Center, commented, “This case is one that should concern all Americans. It is a direct attack on our national heritage, and it is an attack that is occurring on our own soil. The ACLU and its minions, with the help of activist judges, seek to destroy what our Founding Fathers created—One Nation Under God.”
U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) on Tuesday, introduced legislation in the Senate identical to H. R. 5683.
The ACLU officially opposed H.R. 5683 in a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives. However, the ACLU misstated important facts and misrepresented the law. For example, the ACLU claimed that “service members are unable to choose their symbols when, as in Mt. Soledad, the government erects a 43-foot Latin cross upon public property.” In fact, the memorial cross was erected by a private organization and many family members, friends, and comrades of our fallen veterans have chosen to honor their fallen heroes by placing nearly 2,000 memorial plaques at the foot of the cross. Many of the plaques contain the Star of David, honoring fallen Jewish veterans.
Moreover, the ACLU also made the specious claim that “Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Scalia, and Justice White joined Justice Kennedy in noting that Latin crosses on government property violate the Constitution.” In support of this prevarication, the ACLU cited dicta from a dissent written by Justice Kennedy in which he hypothetically claimed that the Establishment Clause would forbid “a city to permit the permanent erection of a large Latin cross on the roof of city hall.” The ACLU failed to mention that Justice Kennedy was dissenting from a decision in which liberal members of the Court held that it was unconstitutional for the government to display a Nativity scene at a county courthouse. In his dissent, Justice Kennedy stated that the ACLU-backed decision to remove the Nativity “reflects an unjustified hostility toward religion, a hostility inconsistent with our history and our precedents.” Furthermore, it was Justice Kennedy who recently issued the stay to prevent! the removal of the memorial cross until all of the legal appeals had been exhausted.
Robert Muise, a trial attorney for the Law Center working on this case, commented, “Any first-year law student knows that dicta is not the law, particularly dicta from a dissenting opinion that does not directly address the legal issue at stake. The ACLU’s misrepresentations may work on activist judges, but they are not fooling the American public or Congress. This case is plainly exposing the ACLU’s anti-Christian agenda.”
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Sincerely,
Richard Thompson, President & Chief Counsel
Thomas More Law Center |
