Yahoo News reported yesterday that a federal judge has cleared to way for the cross in the Mojave Desert to be restored.
The article reports:
A federal judge approved the lawsuit settlement on Monday, permitting the park service to turn over a remote hilltop area known as Sunrise Rock to a Veteran of Foreign Wars post in Barstow and the Veterans Home of California-Barstow.
The park will give up the acre of land in exchange for five acres of donated property elsewhere in the 1.6 million acre preserve in Southern California.
The swap, which could be completed by the end of the year, will permit veterans to restore a cross to the site and end a controversy that became tangled in the thorny issues of patriotism and religion and made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003.
Think about this for a minute. France has graveyards of American soldiers marked with crosses to honor those who died. What has happened to America?
The article reports the history of the cross in the Mojave:
Wanda Sandoz said a wooden cross was first erected on Sunrise Rock in 1934 by a World War I veteran, Riley Bembry. He and other shell-shocked vets had gone out to the desert to recover and would hold barbeques and barn dances near the site, she said.
Her husband knew Bembry and promised the dying vet that he would look after the cross, Wanda Sandoz said. He kept the promise for decades.
“We love the cross,” she said. “It’s in a beautiful spot. … My husband is not a veteran but he feels like this is something he can do for our country.”
The wooden cross was eventually replaced with one made of steel pipes. However, the site became part of the national preserve in 1994 and that meant the cross was then on public land.
The settlement involves a lawsuit filed in 2001 by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a retired park service employee who argued that the Christian religious symbol was unconstitutionally located on government land. Federal courts ordered the removal of the cross.
Does this mean that whenever you see a cross by the side of the highway to mark the spot where someone was killed, you should sue someone to have it removed? I am sorry that the ACLU chose to be offended by this cross, but there is nothing in the Constitution that protects Americans from being offended. The cross as a symbol to honor those who sacrificed their lives for America is a tradition more than a religious item. It’s time for everyone to just relax.
