WASHINGTON — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys are stepping up their defense of a California war memorial with a brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court Friday on behalf of The American Legion Department of California. The brief argues in support of a stay of a district court ruling decreeing that a cross honoring veterans atop Mount Soledad be removed by Aug. 1. Failure to comply by the deadline would subject San Diego taxpayers to a fine of $5,000 per day.
“The Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial and other similar tributes honor those who truly understood the price of freedom, sacrifice, and responsibility,” said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. “Removal of the cross would have no purpose other than to create heartache for the veterans’ families and comrades who cherish their memory. Certainly, no good reason exists to dismantle the cross before a decision can be made on the appeal in this case.”
The battle to save the now 52-year-old cross began in 1989, after a single atheist backed by the American Civil Liberties Union sued the city of San Diego in an effort to remove it. On May 3, a federal district judge ordered the city of San Diego to remove the cross within 90 days or face a fine of $5,000 per day for every day beyond the deadline that the cross still stands.
According the friend-of-the-court brief filed Friday, “There is a strong federal interest at stake necessitating a stay. The Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial is designated under federal law as a national veterans memorial, and the people of San Diego voted overwhelmingly to transfer the memorial to the federal government. A stay is necessary to preserve this powerful federal interest.”
A copy of the brief filed by attorneys with ADF and Liberty Legal Institute on behalf of The American Legion Department of California in
San Diegans for the Mt. Soledad National War Memorial v. Paulson can be read at
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/SoledadBrief.pdf.
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