{"id":2423,"date":"2011-01-05T23:29:16","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T23:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2011\/01\/calif-war-memorial-cross-ruled.php"},"modified":"2011-01-05T23:29:16","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T23:29:16","slug":"calif-war-memorial-cross-ruled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/01\/calif-war-memorial-cross-ruled","title":{"rendered":"Calif. War Memorial Cross Ruled Unconstitutional"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON &#8212; A federal appeals court ruled Jan. 4 that a veterans&#8217; memorial featuring a 43-foot cross on California&#8217;s Mount Soledad is unconstitutional.<br \/>\n&#8220;The use of such a distinctively Christian symbol to honor all veterans sends a strong message of endorsement and exclusion,&#8221; wrote Judge M. Margaret McKeown for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.<br \/>\n&#8220;It suggests that the government is so connected to a particular religion that it treats that religion&#8217;s symbolism as its own, as universal.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe decision that the memorial in La Jolla, Calif., violates the Establishment Clause reverses a lower court decision but does not determine what will happen to the cross that has been the dominant feature of the monument since it was erected in 1913.<br \/>\n&#8220;This result does not mean that the memorial could not be modified to pass constitutional muster nor does it mean that no cross can be part of this veterans&#8217; memorial,&#8221; McKeown concluded.<br \/>\nThe case has wound through the courts for two decades.<br \/>\n&#8220;We are grateful to the Ninth Circuit for its recognition that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment affirms the contribution of diversity in American democracy without pre-eminence to any single religion,&#8221; said Robert M. Zweiman, past national commander of the Jewish War Veterans of the USA, which worked with the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge the memorial.<br \/>\nLegal groups that supported the memorial, including Liberty Institute and the American Center for Law and Justice, called the decision a &#8220;slap in the face&#8221; to military veterans.<br \/>\nA second case involving a controversial monument in Southern California also remains in the courts.<br \/>\nLast April, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted a war memorial cross to remain at the Mojave National Preserve and told a lower court to further consider a congressionally approved transfer of the cross to private land.<br \/>\n<strong>&#8212; Adelle M. Banks<\/strong>, <em>Religion News Service<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON &#8212; A federal appeals court ruled Jan. 4 that a veterans&#8217; memorial featuring a 43-foot cross on California&#8217;s Mount Soledad is unconstitutional. &#8220;The use of such a distinctively Christian symbol to honor all veterans sends a strong message of endorsement and exclusion,&#8221; wrote Judge M. Margaret McKeown for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":264,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-rns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Calif. 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War Memorial Cross Ruled Unconstitutional","og_description":"WASHINGTON &#8212; A federal appeals court ruled Jan. 4 that a veterans&#8217; memorial featuring a 43-foot cross on California&#8217;s Mount Soledad is unconstitutional. &#8220;The use of such a distinctively Christian symbol to honor all veterans sends a strong message of endorsement and exclusion,&#8221; wrote Judge M. Margaret McKeown for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/01\/calif-war-memorial-cross-ruled","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-01-05T23:29:16+00:00","author":"editor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/01\/calif-war-memorial-cross-ruled","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/01\/calif-war-memorial-cross-ruled","name":"Calif. 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