By Bob Allen
One of the nation’s longest-running conflicts between church and state may end in a win-win resolution with the sale of a 43-foot cross located on public land to a private association.
The U.S. Department of Defense sold the half-acre parcel atop Mt. Soledad in San Diego, Calif., July 17 for $1.5 million to the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association, a non-profit entity that has overseen maintenance and administration of the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial since its inception in 1954.
Some observers say the property transfer, authorized in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015 signed by President Obama last December, could finally resolve to a 25-year legal dispute.
In 2011 the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined the monument to be a clear violation of First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal, leaving the appellate court’s ruling in place and sending the case to lower courts for resolution.
A district judge ruled in December 2013 that the cross must come down within 90 days, but stayed the order pending an appeal. The federal government said it would appeal the 9th Circuit ruling at the proper time, but put it on hold when the land transfer was suggested in 2014.
The Liberty Institute, a Plano, Texas,-based non-profit representing the memorial association in the lawsuit, declared the land transfer a victory.
“Today’s actions will ensure that the memorial will continue to stand in honor of our veterans for decades to come,” said Deputy Chief Counsel Hiram Sasser. ‘This is a great victory for the veterans who originally placed this memorial and the Korean War veterans the memorial honors.”
Attorney Jim McElroy, who represents atheist and Vietnam veteran Steve Trunk in the lawsuit, told the San Diego Tribune that he and other parties will be allowed to review the final terms of the land deal to make sure it passes constitutional muster, meaning it will be weeks or even months before the case is formally closed.
Legal wrangling over the monument, originally named the “Mount Soledad Easter Cross,” began with a 1989 lawsuit claiming it unconstitutionally entangled church and state. Numerous courts have said that simply designating it a war memorial does not solve constitutional problems.
Trunk, who attended a Southern Baptist church as a child before becoming a skeptic and eventual unbeliever, said presence of a cross on one of the most picturesque spots in San Diego County makes him feel like a “second-class citizen” and its defense by local and federal governments represents “an official position of exclusion toward a minority group.”
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