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The leader of the nation’s largest veterans organization criticized last week’s decision by the 9th Circuit Court to remove a cross from a World War I veterans memorial in California’s Mojave Desert as the beginning of the “slippery slope of extreme secularism.”
“This is one more prime example of wrong-headed political correctness and one more critical reason why the current Congress must pass the Public Expression of Religion Act,” said American Legion National Commander Marty Conatser. “This is not about freedom of religion. The First Amendment also says Congress shall pass no law ‘prohibiting the free exercise’ of religion. The cross is an important symbol to millions of veterans, some of whom had to make the ultimate sacrifice for this nation.”
Referring to the federal Court’s September 6 decision, Conatser said that across the nation litigation is being brought by the ACLU and other groups attacking the Boy Scouts, the public display of the Ten Commandments and other symbols of America’s religious history. “Today’s lawyers and judges are outlawing the values and religious symbols that the Founding Fathers revered and proclaimed as the very foundation of the American republic,” he said. “Today it’s a memorial. Tomorrow, these same judges can order the removal of crosses on veterans gravestones, the dismissal of military chaplains and the closure of base chapels.”
Conatser pointed out that a loophole in the current law allows the ACLU and other groups to collect millions of dollars in attorney’s fees from the taxpayers, who, by and large, support the memorials.
Congress, in 2004, passed legislation that transferred one acre of the Mojave Desert Memorial on which the cross sits to private ownership, in exchange for five acres of land and thereby effectively removing it from federal jurisdiction. But the circuit court decreed that the federal government couldn’t exchange federal lands for private lands in order to maintain the cross that has been the center of the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial for three quarters of a century.
The American Legion is spearheading a nationwide effort to develop a grassroots groundswell of support to pass legislation in Congress that would amend federal law to prevent the use of the legal system in a manner that extorts money from state and local governments.
“Passage of ‘The Veterans Memorials, Boy Scouts, Public Seals, and Other Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act of 2007’ (PERA) would prevent the ACLU from mugging America’s taxpayers in this manner,” Conatser said. “I hope all Americans who are angry about this, write their senators and representatives and demand that they pass PERA. The bills, H.R. 725 and S. 415 are languishing in the Judiciary Committees of both chambers. It’s time for Congress to make this public law, before other veterans’ memorials are literally desecrated at the whim of judges.”
The American Legion was founded in 1919 on the four pillars of a strong national security, veterans affairs, Americanism, and patriotic youth programs. The Legion’s 2.7 million wartime veterans work for the betterment of their communities through more than 14,000 posts across the nation.
Comments (4)
The view of the American Legion is most unfortunate, and mistaken.
The establishment clause of the First Amendment is intended to protect all Americans against government sponsored religion.
The Department of the Interior is wrong under our Constitution allowing a Latin cross (which is a symbol of Christianity) to be erected on federal land.
The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was correct in affirming the U.S. District Court's injunction ordering the Mojave Latin cross be removed.
Bob Ritter
Jefferson Madison Center for Religious Liberty
Posted by Bob Ritter | 09/11/07 12:21 PM |
Ever since I was a little boy, crosses have been part of the scenery. While I am not a practicing Christian, I resent the ACLU trying to cram their dogma on us. These are the same people who sued my friends in Broward County, Fla. for protecting me against armed robbers on my job.
Posted by Jim Mailhot | 09/16/07 8:23 PM |
Were a court today to determine a Cross or any other religious symbol inappropriate for a NEW monument or memorial being proposed I would disagree with but could easier accept. But for a court today to determine that ANY MONUMENT OR MEMORIAL placed some time in past history to be inappropriate today and require its removal absolutely turns my stomach!
We are going about all this separation of Church and State all wrong and it is a detriment to our society. For us to believe that it is acceptable for an organization to argue, kick and scream about our government having anything at all to do with religion and in fact support their arguments is ridiculous but to in fact empower that group to do the same and in fact harbor those with opposite beliefs from expressing themselves in a similar manner is just plain stupidity! Will someone please show me where the acceptance and acknowledgement of any religious belief, especially the Christian belief by our Government is un-Constitutional? The Government empowering a religious belief, enforcing a particular religious belief would be un-Constitutional but I find it nearly impossible to accept that the mere mention of God, a simple cross, or copy of the Ten Commandments to be un-Constitutional.
We have gone far too long in this country allowing the minority of beliefs to control and manipulate the majority! We must stand up for what we believe and quite honestly, un-constitutional or not if it is accepted and embraced by the majority then that should be the law of the land. Where are these people every day when our Congress is called to order with a Prayer to our Maker to guide them in their tasks for that day? Where are these people when our country faces an attack of outside terrorists that kill thousands in New York City, and we are all called to Pray by our President, where are they when a memorial of fire fighters with a CROSS is established by the populace, not by the order of the government, but by the MAJORITY of the population who embrace the symbol nationwide? Nowhere! And why? Because they know the MAJORITY would not stand for them to take that big a bite out of our culture and beliefs, so instead they choose to nibble at those things which are not in front of us daily, a small court room in nowhere USA, a memorial in the middle of the desert. Unfortunately they realize they have got to take small steps, baby steps to have such a small group of people manipulate and control what the MAJORITY will accept and embrace. But if we allow it to continue we will have given them all the argument they will ever need and more, when they determine the time is right to move on those bigger, better known symbols of Religious freedoms.
Seriously, can anyone produce a convincing argument that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison or any of our founding fathers would, were they brought back here today, feel that a mere copy of the Ten Commandments in a court room, or the symbol of a Cross on a memorial was going against what they were thinking when they wrote “separation of Church and State”?
If we continue to sit when we need to stand and fight for what we believe in we will one day find ourselves without anything to believe in and being told when and where we can stand!
Posted by Gregg Norris | 09/25/07 8:35 AM |
Greg would you be saying the same thing if a different religion was in the majority like maybe Muslim's. I think you would be against that it would be against your faith and what does faith mean according to Merriam-Webster.2 a (1): belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2): belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust. Can you tell me where in the constitution it says that the majority can determine any thing to do with religion. If the government allows one religion to place symbols on government property then they would have to allow every one to place their religious symbols there also.
Posted by Larry Buchite | 10/27/07 10:35 PM |