Thursday, December 12, 2013

2 Landmark S.D. Crosses Must Go, U.S. Judge Rules : Law: Religious symbols atop Mt. Soledad and Mt. Helix are found in violation of the state Constitution.



2 Landmark S.D. Crosses Must Go, U.S. Judge Rules : Law: Religious symbols atop Mt. Soledad and Mt. Helix are found in violation of the state Constitution.
SAN DIEGO — In a landmark decision, a San Diego federal judge ruled Tuesday that the prominent crosses that for years have topped two public parks, Mt. Soledad in La Jolla and Mt. Helix near La Mesa, must come down because they violate the state Constitution's ban on mixing church and state.

In the first federal court decision in California on the emotionally charged issue of the cross as religious symbol on public property, U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. also ordered the city of La Mesa to remove depictions of the Mt. Helix cross from its official insignia. The logo appears on city stationery, police cars and shoulder patches worn by city workers.

Thompson gave officials three months to comply, or to appeal. He said the state Constitution forbids even "the appearance of religious partiality," and the Mt. Soledad and Mt. Helix crosses loom large as huge symbols--figuratively and literally--of Christianity.

The decision marked the latest entry in a string of decisions issued in recent years across the nation by judges wrestling with the legality of religious symbols on public property, the recital of prayers at public meetings and public aid to parochial schools.

The ruling also underscores the increasing vitality of a legal doctrine called "independent state grounds," which allows judges to invoke a state's constitution to grant its citizens greater rights than required by the U.S. Constitution.

The California Constitution affords even greater protection of religious freedoms than the U.S. Constitution offers.

The loose coalition of civil libertarians and atheists who pursued the San Diego case said Tuesday that the decision was the sort of holiday cheer they could support unhesitatingly.

"This is the right result, both constitutionally and in terms of what we should be doing as a diverse society," said Betty Wheeler, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties, which challenged the Mt. Helix cross and the La Mesa insignia.

"One of our core values as Americans is that we don't exclude people from feeling welcome, as a part of our society, based on their religion," Wheeler said. "We protect religious liberty by keeping the government out of religion."

Howard Kreisner, who filed suit with another avowed atheist, Philip K. Paulson, against the Mt. Soledad cross, called the decision an "example of people without wealth or influence 'fighting City Hall.' "

It was uncertain Tuesday whether the city of San Diego, the county of San Diego or the city of La Mesa, the three governmental bodies sued in the case, would appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal appellate court that serves nine Western states, including California.

Lawyers said that no governmental body has ever won a federal court appeal of an adverse decision in a cross case.

San Diego County Supervisor George Bailey said he will suggest a way around the decision at next week's board meeting. The Mt. Helix cross is in Bailey's district, and he said he would propose a transfer of the few square yards in the park on which the Mt. Helix cross sits to a private, nonprofit corporation.

California
Mount Soledad (Korean War memorial)
Mount Soledad is topped by a large concrete Christian cross, first built in 1913, and rebuilt twice. The cross was initially understood as a signal that Jews were not welcome in La Jolla. After it was challenged in court during the late 1980s, it was designated a Korean War memorial. It became the center of a controversy, known around the world,[31] over the display of religious symbols on government property. It was ruled unconstitutional by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in January 2011.

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