SAN DIEGO — Seeking to prevent the removal of the 52-year-old Mount Soledad cross from atop a war memorial, the Alliance Defense Fund, representing The American Legion Department of California, and Liberty Legal Institute, representing the national American Legion, have filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
“The cross is universally recognized as a way to honor those who have fallen, both military and civilian members of society,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “Not only did the cross stand unchallenged for 35 years, the citizens of San Diego chose to reaffirm their support for it in a landslide vote last year. It should not be torn down after more than a half century to satisfy one person’s agenda.”
In 2005, 75 percent of San Diegans voted to preserve the Mount Soledad cross by transferring it from city property to the ownership of the National Park Service.
Earlier this month, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy issued a stay in favor of Mount Soledad supporters, allowing the cross to remain until a final outcome is determined in the ongoing litigation surrounding the cross (
www.telladf.org/news/story.aspx?cid=3790). On May 3, a federal district judge had ordered the cross to be removed within 90 days, saying that the city would be subjected to a $5,000 per day fine for every day it continued to stand beyond the deadline.
A copy of the brief filed in
Paulson v. City of San Diego can be read at
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/Paulson.pdf.
“Clearly, the overwhelming majority of San Diegans both support and welcome the cross,” Theriot said. “Just as thousands of crosses in Arlington Cemetery, including the Argonne Cross, stand on public ground to honor our war dead, so does the cross at Mount Soledad. Despite the best efforts of a lone atheist, nothing is wrong or unconstitutional about allowing the cross to stand for this purpose. Historically, crosses have been used in this country and through out the world to memorialize those who made the ultimate sacrifice for something greater than themselves.”
ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
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