Posted on 11/06/2012 3:18:56 PM PST by BenLurkin
SAN MATEO (CBSLA.com) — A Mojave Desert memorial dedicated to fallen U.S. soldiers that was stolen two years ago has resurfaced in Northern California.
KNX 1070′s Jan Stevens reports the controversial cross had been standing in the Mojave National Preserve in San Bernardino County since 1934 before it was discovered missing in 2010.
Lt. Larry Schumaker with San Mateo Sheriff’s said the 7-foot-high cross was found zip-tied to a fence post near a highway in Half Moon Bay.
“It had some significant scratches so we confirmed it’s the cross that belongs there,” said Schumaker.
A letter taped to the cross asked the finder to please contact authorities so that it could be returned to its rightful location.
“The note basically said, ‘This cross is an important historical artifact,’” Schumaker added.
The cross was purportedly stolen after a lawsuit filed in 2001 by the American Civil Liberties Union over the constitutionality of the monument, which argued that the monument is a violation of separation of church and state.
The Supreme Court ruled against that argument in April 2010, and now the Veterans of Foreign Wars is planning to dedicate a replacement cross in the Mojave Desert on Veterans Day.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for taking or returning the cross.
The National Park Service is taking possession of the memorial.
Hopefully the scratches came from using it to beat the tar out of whoever stole it in the first place.
wiki trivia:
In the United States, the term is an offshoot of the phrase, “wall of separation between church and state”, as written in Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. The original text reads: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.” Jefferson reflected his frequent speaking theme that the government is not to interfere with religion.[7] The phrase was quoted by the United States Supreme Court first in 1878, and then in a series of cases starting in 1947.[8] The phrase “separation of church and state” itself does not appear in the United States Constitution.
Because Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.
Very glad that it has been found.
Glad it was found. But will it be returned to its rightful place?
Yes. Under the Supreme Court decision, the one acre plot of land around the cross has been ceded by the federal government so that the cross can remain in that location.
My thoughts exactly but not likely.
My thoughts exactly but not likely.
I was hoping it was used as a colonoscopy instrument on the perpetrator . . .
...sideways!
Yes. I've challenged liberals many times to show me where it appears in the Constitution, and never hear back from them. The separation thing was dreamed up by a judge from Jefferson's 1802 letter, and has nothing to do with the founding documents of our nation. Libs can't bury that fact.
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