Thread: ACLU Seeks to Tear Down Another War Memorial Cross

ACLU Seeks to Tear Down Another War Memorial Cross

Friday, June 12, 2009 4:16 PM

By: Dave Eberhart

It’s the agonizing case of the little cross that could.

First erected on Sunrise Rock in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in memory of the dead of all wars, the small remote symbol - hidden away in California’s Mojave Desert - finds itself at the center of an ideological war between the ACLU and a handful of military heroes.

The ACLU, or American Civil Liberties Union, succeeded in obtaining a ruling in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals holding that the familiar icon topping Sunrise Rock violated the doctrine of separation of church and state. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case, Ken Salazar v. Frank Buono.

A lot of Marines will be following that case and the arguments laid down in a brief to the High Court by the Thomas Moore Law Center and its ally the Individual Rights Foundation. Meanwhile, the Sunrise Rock cross remains covered by a court ordered shroud - in case a passing hiker or off-road-vehicle enthusiast in this remote desert terrain might take offense.

Fallen Marine comrades have memorial plagues placed at the site of another cross long under assault by the ACLU - the cross at Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial. Should the Supreme Court affirm the Ninth Circuit’s ruling re the Sunrise Rock cross, the cross site at Mt. Soledad, which has been the subject of much litigation over the past twenty years, will be newly threatened as well.

The heroes whose memorial plaques are under assault include: Vietnam prisoner of war Rear Admiral Jeremiah Denton, USN (Ret.) and Marine Majors Michael D. Martino and Gerald Bloomfield, III, both of whom were killed in combat in Iraq on November 2, 2005.

In the Law Center brief, the Justices are reminded by the attorney-authors of words already spoken in past opinions by the Supreme Court:

“It has never been thought either possible or desirable to enforce a regime of total separation. Nor does the Constitution require complete separation of church and state; it affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any.â€

What is the REAL purpose of the ACLU? To be a pain in the ass to freedom loving Americans everywhere? I just dont get what thier real or intended prupose is?!?