SAN DIEGO — For two decades the emotionally volatile issue of the 43-foot cross atop Mt. Soledad has been in the state and federal courts.
Nearly all the rounds have been won by plaintiffs who say the cross, erected in the early 1950s, is an unconstitutional intrusion of religion on public property.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday, September 18, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 49 words Type of Material: Correction
Mt. Soledad cross: An article in Saturday's California section on the controversy surrounding a cross on public land on Mt. Soledad in San Diego County misspelled the name of Remo Alexandri, spokesman for Archbishop Hovnan Derderian of the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of North America, as Alexaneri.
The legal fight has outlasted the careers of numerous politicians and judges and the life span of the original plaintiff. Various legal and political stratagems by city officials to save the cross failed.
When the cross was slated for removal by judicial order, Congress stepped in and took control. President Bush signed a bill in 2006 transferring the property to the federal government as an official war memorial.
On walls surrounding the cross are 2,000-plus plaques memorializing the lives of service personnel, including soldiers who served in the Spanish-American War and Marines killed in Iraq.
Then in late July, a new judge issued a ruling that seemed to wash away all the previous rulings that had favored the plaintiffs.
U.S. District Judge Larry Burns ruled that Congress had taken the property not to advance Christianity, but to maintain the cross as an integral part of a war memorial. As such, he reasoned, there was nothing unconstitutional about the cross.
In a 36-page opinion, Burns, a graduate of San Diego's Point Loma Nazarene University, ruled that a cross doesn't necessarily have to be seen as a religious symbol:
"The Latin cross is, to be sure, the preeminent symbol of Christianity, but it does not follow that the cross has no other meaning or significance. Depending on the context in which it is displayed, the cross may evoke no particular religious impression at all."
Burns said he respects the "honest and deeply-felt offense" the plaintiffs feel toward having the cross on public property. But he noted:
"The cross has a broadly-understood ancillary meaning as a symbol of military service, sacrifice, and death; it is displayed along with numerous purely secular symbols in an overall context that reinforces its secular message."
The American Civil Liberties Union chapter of San Diego and Imperial counties, representing several plaintiffs including the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America, has appealed Burns' ruling to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
The arguments, currently unscheduled, will involve closely reasoned interpretations of numerous court decisions involving placement of religious symbols and icons on public property.
