Supreme Court Decision in Mojave Cross Case Is Disappointing, Says AU's Lynn

Justices Allow Congress To Circumvent Federal Court Order Requiring Removal Of Religious Symbol From Public Land


Today’s Supreme Court decision in a California cross case is disappointing, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“I’m very disappointed,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “The court majority was clearly determined to find any bogus reason to keep this religious symbol in a public park.”

Added Lynn, “It’s alarming that the high court continues to undermine the separation of church and state. Nothing good can come from this trend.”

Lynn said the ruling in Salazar v. Buono will likely encourage further assaults on the church-state wall.

“This decision lets Congress bypass the Constitution and devise a convoluted scheme to keep a cross on display in a federal park,” Lynn remarked. “That’s bad law and bad public policy.

http://www.au.org/media/press-releases/archives/2010/04/supreme-court-decision-in.html?utm_source=au%2Bhomepage&utm_medium=homepage%2Bbanner&utm_campaign=Featured%2Bon%20homepage



Kennedy, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Roberts, C. J., joined, and in which Alito, J., joined in part. Roberts, C. J., filed a concurring opinion. Alito, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. Scalia, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Thomas, J., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Ginsburg and Sotomayor, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-472.ZS.html

on federal land. in the middle of national parks, for instance. or on the washington mall.

and if anyone objects, they can simple sell the square foot on which the cross stands to a christian group and get paid for their end run around the constitution.

if a non-christian group really thinks the cross doesn't belong there, they must pay to do anything about it by outbidding all christian groups and then tear down the cross. of course, the government could then just plant a new cross a foot away and start the process all over again.

to say the decision is insane is to give them too much credit.
it's downright nefarious. they KNOW what they're doing.

The opinion of Justice Kennedy is quite clear, he is upholding the right of the Federal Government to sell land so that a Veteran's Group can maintain a War Memorial on that plot of land (Technically it is an exchange of land, the one acre the cross in one for anther five acre parcel inside the park's boundary but not previously owned by the National Park Service). The key to Kennedy is that the cross has been in the park since 1934 and no one complained about it till 2002 (an unstated supporting key is the Cross had been put up by the VFW not a religious group). 70 years is a long time and in his opinion shows that the cross long ago (if it ever did) have any religious significance EXCEPT that it was on Federal law. Once removed from Federal law that is no longer a problem and he saw no difference between physically moving the cross to another location from selling the land in a matter long permitted by Congress (General Rule if you want a piece of Federal land you can sometime get it if you have another larger piece of property the government also wants, that is a long practice on both the State and Federal Level).

If this was a more recent cross, even Scalia and Thomas would have ordered it removed. The Court does NOT want to impose modern sensibility on issues like this cross in regards to monuments built during past periods with a substantially different set of sensibilities. If the religious symbol is long standing, does NOT directly offend a religion and not overwhelmingly seen by most people as imposing a religion the courts will tend to leave such symbols stay. If someone was asking to put up this cross today, the Court will NOT permit it, but what do you do with something that has been there 70 years and built during a time period when no one had any objection to it being built?

Please note one of the factor in this case is the land is to be owned by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) NOT a religious group and has always been viewed as a WWI war memorial, even when built. Thus the court upheld the cross, but would not do so for something built today or anything built since the 1954 Supreme Court Decision as to Prayers in School. The Court has come to view that decision as a watershed and the point where local Governments should have known better then to permit such structures. The problem is prior to that date the US Supreme Court had been unclear as to what was separation of Church and State and had left that up to the States to decide. In that 1954 Decision the Supreme Court accepted that the States HAD not done a good job as to separation of Church and State and started to do so itself, but how do you undo the result of the neglect for the previous 100 years? This has been a problem for the court and has had to decide such cases on a case by case basis, but my point is this case is dealing with very old monuments NOT anything being built today and thus this decision has no affect on anyone's ability to built a religious symbol on Government land today.

The Actual Opinion, if you want to read it:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-472.pdf

Anther DU site on this issue:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4359888

I find it hard to believe that Scalia and Thomas would vote to ban recently erected cross though. But I d think i believe that about Kennedy. I still wish they would have had it removed though.

But on a positive note. this is another example that Sotomayor probably is going to be a good judge. Im still not quite convinced, but Im beginning to be. Ill be watching her vote on he violent video games free speech case. That will be an important one for me.

and develop opinions to support them later.

to wit, scalia suddenly being a big fan of equal protection in bush v. gore.

i agree that this decision doesn't *explicitly* give the government the power i suggest, but reality is another story.

Then it's going to get very interesting.