Supreme Court says Mojave cross can stand

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Los Angeles Times

In a divided ruling, the justices rule that the 1st Amendment calls for ‘accommodation’ of religious displays on public land rather than strict separation of church and state.

By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times
April 28, 2010 | 8:30 a.m.

Reporting from Washington

The Supreme Court gave its approval Wednesday to displaying a cross on public land to honor fallen soldiers, saying the Constitution "does not require the eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm."

Speaking for a divided court, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the 1st Amendment called for a middle-ground "policy of accommodation" toward religious displays on public land, not a strict separation of church and state.

Kennedy disagreed with judges in California who said U.S. National Park Service officials must remove a small Latin cross from the Mojave National Preserve that had stood since 1934 to honor soldiers who died in World War I. The judges said the display of the cross on public land amounted to a government endorsement of religion.

"A Latin cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs," he wrote. "Here, a Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten."

The 5-4 decision told the lower-court judges to reconsider the matter and presumably uphold the display of a cross. Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined Kennedy's opinion, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed separately that the cross can remain on display.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-mojave-cross-20100429,0,6850286.story

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Did Stevens write the dissent?

This is judicial activism by the conservatives.

[brendan120678]

2. Not a huge surprise...including the 5-4 split.

I think this was pretty much expected.

[rurallib]

Might as well say Kennedy ruled today that.......

with the current 4-4 split + Kennedy he has become a one man SCOTUS.

Well I hope that someone asks to put up a star of David and a Muslim Crescent etc to join the cross.

[glinda]

4. They should erect others of all stripes. Then watch those get vandalized.

[DesertDiamond]

8. My thoughts exactly. They want their symbol displayed -- exclusively.

Put up a memorial from another religion and they'd knock it down.

[paulsby]

24. and why do u believe this?

does this happen?

where?

[Lance_Boyle]

31. There are the 'godless' billboards, for examples of Christian vandalism.

And there's the DoD's refusal (until very recently, I think) to allow a Wiccan pentagram on a deceased soldier's grave marker - this goes to the Christian symbol exclusivity thing.

[paulsby]

34. good examples, thx nt

[Name removed]

33. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ignis]

13. I, for one, can't wait to put up a HUGE statue of Baphomet.

They shouldn't have any problem at all with that on public lands, right?

[Nye Bevan]

18. Again, it's private land, not public land.

The land is owned by VFW. The court upheld the land exchange as constitutional. So if you buy land from the Government you can feel free to put whatever statue you want on it without violating separation of church and state.

[Zenlitened]

21. Flat out false: "The court upheld the land exchange as constitutional. "

...the justices ordered the federal court in California to look again at Congress' plan to transfer a patch of federal land beneath it into private hands.

Link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100428/ap_on_go_su_co/us_supreme_court_mojave_cross

[Nye Bevan]

22. Meaning, the transfer was consitutional

So it is private land.

[Zenlitened]

26. Also false.

Have you even read the ruling?

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-472.pdf

[Ignis]

37. The land was private when the cross was built on it?

Or is this just another cross-friendly apologia for the shady transfer of the postage-stamp-sized parcel of public lands after the cross was built, solely designed as an end-run around the Constitution?

[MindPilot]

53. well, kind of, but not really maybe

My understanding is that the original cross was erected in 1934. At that time it was federal land but not a national park--federal in the sense that the Indians had been run off it. But the cross has been replaced a couple of times, most recently in IIRC 1986 well after the area was a National Park and a natural preserve with strict restrictions on erection of any kind of structure.

[RaleighNCDUer]

32. Baphomet! You heathen!

I'll put up a BIGGER one to Ba'al!! That'll show ya.

[Ignis]

38. Baphomet's much more well endowed, so I win!

:P

[RaleighNCDUer]

42. Well, shoot. Now what am i going to do with these babies? nt

[Ignis]

43. Save them up for the War on Christmas.

We need all the ammo we can get for the mortars.

[DavidDvorkin]

3. Damn them

What a mockery this court majority gang is.

[defendandprotect]

5. No one's religion is dependent upon having its religious symbols displayed on PUBLIC land . . .

If that were true, there would be no religion!!

Put it on private property --

Another right wing fiasco from Supremes!

[Nye Bevan]

7. The cross *is* on private land (nt)

[No Elephants]

11. Someone should have told the SCOTUS that.

[Nye Bevan]

14. I think they knew. It's on Page 1 of their decision.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/30642133/Salazar-v-Buono-No-08-472?from_email_04_friend_send=1&emid=h6KIvmI8iOI-12385052

[Zenlitened]

28. Hint: Read past page 1.

[Zenlitened]

12. See post #10

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4359888&mesg_id=4360009

[joeybee12]

16. The public land was CHANGED to private land to get around this...

...it has only been private land for a short time.

[Nye Bevan]

17. So the Government should never sell land

just in case someone one day decides to put a religious symbol on it?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

23. No. The government shouldn't sell or otherwise transfer land to get ..

... around separation laws. If you or I did anything like it, it would be deemed a sham transaction subject to unraveling.

I can already see the squirrel cages in fundie pea-brains around the country starting to spin: "Hey, why don't we just sign over this chunk of land in front of the courthouse, school, library or police station so we can erect a cross"

[Socal31]

6. The problem is that people are trying to block the transfer of the property to private hands.

If the government wants to transfer land to a private entity, so be it. You can't tell them that it can't be on public land and then say they cant give up the land either.

<---- Athiest as it gets.

[Zenlitened]

10. False.

"In Mojave, they sold this postage-stamp parcel to a veterans group in exchange for a piece of veterans' land seven miles away," he said. "So now you have private land sitting in the middle of thousands of acres of federal land. I think it was a convoluted transfer to try and save the cross, thus it was an unconstitutional act.

"That's really the issue before the Supreme Court: Was this a neutral act of government to remedy a legal problem, or were they motivated by (preserving) a pro-religious symbol?"

Link:
http://www.lajollalight.com/news/261626-mojave-cross-could-inform-mt.-soledad-case

Edited to add:

...(Today's Supreme Court ruling) was narrow, ordering lower courts to look again at the transfer of land from the government to private control.

Lower federal courts previously ruled that the cross' location on public land violated the Constitution and that the land transfer was, in effect, an end run around the constitutional problem.

Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/28/us/politics/AP-US-Supreme-Court-Mojave-Cross.html?ref=aponline

[Nye Bevan]

15. Following this logic, no public land can ever be sold

just in case one day someone builds a church or a mosque on it.

[Fumesucker]

19. The cross has been on the land since 1934 according to the article..

The only reason for the sale was to keep the cross in defiance of the court order.

[Ignis]

39. Shush you, with your inconvenient "facts" and "history."

:D

[MindPilot]

40. Aww, c'mon.

I'm sure anyone can buy a few hundred square feet of property in the middle of a huge expanse of federal land. The government sells off small patches of national parks all the time, right?

[Ignis]

41. I'm sure they'll sell me a 10' square atop Yosemite Falls.

That huge statue of Baphomet I'm planning to build has to go somewhere, after all.

[Zenlitened]

20. Logic fail again.

The issue is dishonest shell games and semantics. Your comparison makes no sense at all in the context of this case.

[Ian David]

25. I think he just didn't read carefully. n/t

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[defendandprotect]

47. Well, not in the middle of a national park, anyway . . .

[No Elephants]

9. What the Justices imagine something "evokes" is now a Constitutional standard. Swell.

What about the Jewish stars or Muslim crescents over graves of fallen soldiers? Does the cross "evoke" those, too?

[SoapBox]

29. Wait For It!...the best (or is that WORST) is yet to come...

Now that we have an Activist set of judges on the Supreme Court, get ready...there will be changes that the "Founding Fathers" never, ever intended.

I prefer to call them the ActivistJudgesFive.

[Lance_Boyle]

30. A huge cross doesn't evoke religion, it invokes images of thousands of smaller crosses?

WTF is Kennedy smoking? And what, PRAY tell, Mr. Kennedy, do those images of thousands of small Christian crosses evoke?

Fucktard.

[christx30]

50. Even smaller crosses.

It's like a Russian Nesting Doll.

[MindPilot]

36. Another 5-4. Time to rename the SCOTUS Vatican West.

According to the national park regulations governing that site, no structure of any kind is allowed which is why the Buddhists were denied permission to build their meditation area.

The land was sold to the VFW with the express purpose of circumventing park regulations and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. That's like me getting out of a DUI charge by selling the car I was driving.

The cross has not been there since 1934; it was replaced in 1986 in direct violation of park regulations.

Once again Christians get preferential treatment and once again the court says that's ok because it's a "war memorial". I'm getting really tired of veterans being used to force a de facto state religion on the people.

[glinda]

44. Time to do a lawsuit against SCOTUS for violating the laws of the land.

[defendandprotect]

48. Time to start impeaching them . . . let's start with the pervert ....

[glinda]

51. How does one actually impeach a SC Judge?

[defendandprotect]

55. I don't know but the rw threatened Warren with impeachment for years + years . . .!!

And you could certainly open the evidence vs Thomas that he should not be sitting on

the court as a sexual pervert -

The evidence should have been heard at the time -- thanks to Biden, it wasn't!

[happyslug]

46. This is NOT a 5-4 decision it is a 2-1-2-3-1 mess

See my post below, this decision is a mess.

I have NOT read anything this bad since the Dred Scott case, which was a 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 Decision Yes Nine Justices nine opinions and this is before the invention of the Typewriter thus Dred Scott was written out in long hand and then taken to a printer:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0060_0393_ZS.html

Taney's decision is considered the "Court Decision" for two other justices agreed to sign off on his while writing their own concurrence. Thus Dred Scott could be a 3-1-1-1-1-1-1 decision if you want to look at it that way (and this decision, given Alito concurrence could be a 3-2-3-1 decision.

[happyslug]

45. This case decided NOTHING, only three Justice agreed on any one opinion and that was the dissent

Interesting decision, but one that will have little influence. A 2-1-2-3-1 case is never a good precedent. By 2-1-2-3-1 case I mean two justices wrote the main opinion (Kennedy and Roberts), One Justice wrote an opinion agreeing with that opinion except for one minor point (Alito), two justices agreed with the result but disagreed as to the opinion (Scalia and Thomas), three justices dissented (Stevens, Ginsburg and Sotomayor) in one opinion and finally, one justice (Breyer) dissented on anther ground. What a mess.

In more details JUSTICE KENNEDY, joined in full by THE CHIEF JUSTICE and in part by JUSTICE ALITO, wrote an opinion remanding the case to the lower court to consider what the court ruled today. Basically the court ruled that a simple transfer of land removes the cross from being an endorsement of any one religion for once the land is sold the cross is no longer on Government land and as such is then Constitutional. The case was remanded to the trail court to make sure the land transfer is "Real" but all that is needed is for the land to be sold by Congress.

JUSTICE ALITO wrote a concurrent opinion in which he would have ruled the land transfer was constitutional on its face and thus there was NO need for a remand for further proceedings by the lower court

Scalia and Thomas agreed with the result, for they held the Plaintiff did NOT have standing to bring this suit and as such the case should have been dismissed on a lack of standing. Scalia and Thomas said the Plaintiff clearly had no objections to the cross being in private land and given he had no objection to the cross being on private land he had no standing to object to the transfer of the cross to private land.

STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. At first this reads more of an attack on Scalia's objection to the Plaintiff's standing then anything Kennedy said, then it settles down to attack on Kennedy's decision basically saying the cross was an endorsement of religion and a simple transfer of the land it was on would NOT solve that problem for the cross would remain where it is and where it has been for 70 some years and since people will view it as being on Government land even when it is NOT it is still an endorsement of a auricular Religion and as such unconstitutional.

BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in his opinion he ignores the whole issue of religion and the cross for he maintains the issue is one of injunctive relief. i.e. the Government had already lost the case in regards to the cross being on Government land and that case was long settled. The only issue before the Court was enforcement of the Court Order in that original case and that is left up to the trial court to decide HOW to enforce its own court orders and the Supreme Court should adopt that rule here i.e. this is a case up to the trial judge as how to enforce his order and the higher courts should uphold HOW the Judge enforces his order. Breyer would have just upheld whatever the Ninth Circuit did in this case for the simple reason the ninth Circuit upheld what the trial judge had done.

In simple terms you had three Judges, Scalia, Thomas and Breyer who said this was a bad case for the Court to take on and would have dismissed it (Scalia and Thomas said the trial Judge should have dismissed it for lack of standing, Breyer said the Plaintiff had standing for he was seeking enforcement of a Court Order he had previously won and how that Court Order is enforced is up to the Trial Judge).

Actual Decision:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-472.pdf

[MindPilot]

52. Thanks for that clarification

or as clear as it could get, which ain't very.

[defendandprotect]

49. "Small cross" . . . how big is it? Looks fairly large --

I really haven't read this case -- way behind on SC decision reading!

It should not be in a national park, IMO -- transfer it to a Veteran's cemetery.

[krispos42]

54. Well, thank God it's not an activist court overturning precedent and legislating from the bench

:sarcasm: