Bush Signs Bill, Feds Take Control of Soledad Cross
NBC San Diego reports:
"It's a great victory for our veterans," said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.
For some reason, I just can't quite figure out how it is a "victory" for veterans that the federal government has to take control of the land under a memorial in order to preserve a religious monument which the courts have repeatedly struck down as unconstitutional. Where is the "victory" for veterans that the federal government is conspiring with a city government for the purpose of subverting the Constitution? Perhaps it qualifies as a victory for those few Christian veterans who didn't actually serve to defend the Constitution and who would like to see America become more theocratic, but that's about it.
Paulson's attorney, Jim McElroy, said he filed papers in federal court in San Diego last week to void the transfer and declare it unconstitutional. "I don't think anybody really thinks the cross is going to remain on Mount Soledad. It's been 17 years of litigation, and every court, every judge who's ever looked at it has ruled it's unconstitutional," McElroy said.
I doubt that the transfer itself will be found unconstitutional — regardless of the reasons, transferring ownership from a city government to the federal government is the sort of thing which would be difficult to do in a manner that isn't fully legal. Every judge may have found the Christian cross to be unconstitutional in government memorial, but that shouldn't transfer to a transfer of ownership. What this would mean, though, is that the legal fight has to start over at the federal level.
City officials have argued that the cross is part of a secular war memorial, and the cross has been embraced by San Diego residents who last year overwhelmingly approved a measure to preserve it by donating it to the federal government. A judge declared the measure unconstitutional.
To take the second argument first, it frankly doesn't matter what the people of the city of San Diego have voted to do — people can't vote to do things which are unconstitutional. Some can't seem to understand or accept the fact that the Constitution puts a brake on majoritarian democracy by making it difficult or impossible to achieve certain things by a simple majority vote. It doesn't matter how many people in San Diego vote to authorize the city government to promote Christianity over other religions, no government at any level has that authority under the Constitution.
As to the first argument, the mere fact that the memorial in general is secular doesn't suddenly mean that the Christian cross is OK — and that would be the case even if the cross were small. What we actually have is a massive cross which is clearly the central focus of the entire area. That matters. The Supreme Court has found that a religious element among secular elements in a larger display can be acceptable, but simply adding secular elements doesn't automatically translate into a secular display.
If Christians want to keep the memorial as it currently is, they must argue that it is a fundamentally secular memorial rather than a religious memorial. To accomplish this, they must get people to believe that a memorial where a Christian cross plays such a central and important role somehow becomes "secular" — but it's not clear why Christians should or would truly believe such a thing. Christians have worked hard to argue that objects like the Ten Commandments are actually secular, but do they really want to do the same with their cross?
That's hard to believe. If they do so, however, and if any court actually accepts their arguments, then perhaps atheists should start adopting the cross as their own symbol. Instead of the "Christian cross" let's make it the "Atheist cross" and insist that wherever it appears, even on Christian churches, it's really a symbol of atheism and an atheistic dismissal of the likely existence of any gods or anything supernatural. Why not?
Separation of Church & State:
- Separation of Church and State 101
- Secularism 101
- What is the Separation of Church and State?
- Religion's Place in the Public Square
- Myths About Church/State Separation
Christian & Religious Privilege:
Comments
There sure are a lot of crosses on American war cemetaries throughout the world. For example, look at the American Ardennes Cemetery in Belgium (http://www.peachmountain.com/5star/American_Cemetery_Ardennes.asp). Is this contitutional?
These cemetaries were built shortly after the war ended and I assume nobody objected to the Christian nature of these monuments. Personally I don’t have a problem with it and I think these cemeteries are the least that a nation can do to give proper recognition to those who sacrificed their life.
It does, however, indicate that the US has a history of favoring Christianity over other religions and atheism.
A cross on a grave is not unconstitutional because:
1. Even if the land is public, the grave itself is personal. It’s a person’s gave, not the nation’s grave.
2. There doesn’t have to be a cross there. The military offers quite a few different symbols for graves - even one for atheists. So long as all religions and no religion are treated equally, there is no endorsement of any one religion or even of religion generally.
All of this is substantially different from the Mt. Soledad memorial. There we have a memorial supposedly for all people not just one individual, and a single religion is being given special, favorable treatment.
1. The graves on WW I and WW II cemeteries were created by the US governemnt and are maintained as a commemorative monument by the American Battle Monuments Commission to recognize those who sacrificed their life. Many of those who died in these wars were non-Christians.
2. I toured several WW I and WW II cemeteries in Europe and I only recall seeing crosses.
The point I was trying to make is that there are precendents of the US government using taxpayer money to maintain monuments that appear to be exclusively Christian.
1. All veterans have a right to a grave marker paid for by the government, whether that marker is a cross or something else.
2. I’ve seen grave markers in Europe with a Star of David - uncommon, but they exist. It’s likely that where you toured either everyone was registered as a Christian or at the time only crosses were available. If the latter is the case, families have the right to have the marker changed.
3. Individual grave markers are not monuments or memorials for wars generally, veterans generally, or the nation generally. Individual grave markers are also not exclusively Christian - they can be whatever the family chooses. Ergo, individual grave markers are not a precedent for a government-sponsored memorials where Christianity is the sole religions endorsed, sponsored, promoted, or financed.