New Developments Against A.C.L.U to Save Veterans Memorials

Written By: Attorney Rees Lloyd  |  Posted: Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

As Americans gather to remember and honor their war dead at veterans memorials in Memorial Day observances, there have been significant developments in the two most important cases pending regarding the ACLU's attempts to destroy veterans memorials by Establishment of Religion Clause legal attacks brought on behalf of plaintiffs who complain they are "offended" by the sight of a cross honoring veterans. Those cases are: The Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial Cross Case and the Mount Soledad National Veterans Memorial Cross case. They are certain to be landmarks affecting generations of Americans.
The first case, the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial Cross Case (Salazar v. Buono) involves a 10-year-long ACLU lawsuit attack on a memorial established by members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in 1934 to honor WWI veterans. It consisted of an unadorned eight-foot metal cross bolted on a rock outcrop known as Sunrise Rock, eleven miles off the highway in the desert.

The U.S. Supreme Court, on April 28, 2010, overturned orders to destroy the cross which the U.S. District Court in Riverside, CA, issued in 2002, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal ordered enforced, at the request of ACLU. The Supreme Court remanded the Mojave Cross Case to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with its ruling. (See, for more details on the ruling and history of the case)
A major new development in the Mojave Case is that on the night of May 9-10, 2010, approximately ten days after the Supreme Court ruled, criminal secular extremists desecrated the memorial by tearing down and carrying away the cross. They have not yet been captured. (Discussed below.)
The second case, the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial Cross Case (Trunk, et al., vs. City of San Diego, et al.), is now in the 21st year of ACLU-backed litigation to destroy the cross there by plaintiffs "offended" by it. The Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial, established in 1954, contains six concentric walls bearing some 2, 700 plaques honoring veterans, leading up to a 29-foot tall cross at the pinnacle of Mt. Soledad, where there has been a cross, in one form or another, since 1913. (See, www.soledadmemorial.com)
The Mt. Soledad Case is pending in the 9th Circuit on the appeal of the ACLU from the decision of the U.S. District Court in San Diego that the cross does not violate the Establishment of Religion Clause. That court held that a "reasonable person" would understand that the cross is there in order to symbolize the selfless service and sacrifice of veterans, not to endorse any particular religion.

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