Court Intervenes in Calif. Cross Fight

I just read an AP story regarding the Mount Soledad National War Memorial ‘Cross’ controversy. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the Supreme Court issued and injunction to stop the removal of the cross ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. in May 2006; he ordered the city to take down the 29-foot cross before Aug. 2, 2006 or pay daily fines of $5,000.

The battle has been on going since the cross was contested in 1989 by Philip Paulson, a Vietnam veteran and atheist. Paulson's attorney, James E. McElroy, an ACLU hack, played down the significance of Kennedy's order saying "What he really did today was nothing”; Perhaps.

There is hope for favorable outcome here. The SCOTUS has in its most recent cases involving religious symbols ruled last year in a two 5-4 decisions that overtly religious displays are unconstitutional but historic ones are allowed. The Mount Soledad Cross is a part of a National War Memorial and as such should be protected.

But how have we come to this? What is it that the courts do not understand about the Establishment Clause? “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…“

Those words seem pretty straight forward to me. Congress, that is the Federal Government, can make no law that “establishes” a religion. Those ten words have been turned, twisted and redefined; not by Congress (the voice of the people), but by an out of control judicial system. Terms such as “separation of church and state”, “wall of separation” and “preference of one religion over another” have been woven into the fabric of the First Amendment by Judges who have removed the blindfold of justice and replaced it with secular blinders.

The judge’s ruling in the Mount Soledad case, which he described as "long overdue," found the cross to be an unconstitutional display of government preference of one religion over another*. Would someone please show me where the Constitution in general and the First Amendment in particular says that the government cannot “prefer” one religion over another? Establish and prefer are not synonyms in any dictionary I ever consulted. *my emphasis

I believe it is fair to say that the United States of America prefers Christianity over other religions. That does not make us a theocracy. We are a nation born in the light of Judea-Christian Faith; it is prominent on our Seal, on our money and engraved in stone on some of our great buildings of government. It is declared in our Declaration of Independence, in the writings of the Father’s of our country and the Framers of the Constitution.

James Madison, known as the Father of the Constitution, put it this way in 1785.

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

John Adams, our second President and a framer of the Constitution, stated it very bluntly…

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were. . . The general principles of Christianity. . . . I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature.”

And

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Consider these words from Calvin Coolidge, our 30th president:

"The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country."

If “Silent Cal” was right, what does that say for our future in an increasingly secular society?

Then too, these anti-Christian bigots always base their arguments on the first part of the establishment clause… there is a second part that is conveniently ignored; “…or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” Where and when are our rights as a Christians going to receive some consideration?

How is it that burning the American Flag on public property is protected by the Constitution but the display of Cross on public property is forbidden? We have freedom of speech but not freedom of religion. Why? The reasons are many but the rational is woefully lacking. Somehow we have gotten to the point where if one is offended all must suffer. I say to you, as an American, you are free to say what you will, believe what you will but you do not have the freedom to not be offended.

If by some quirk the SCOTUS upholds the lower court order of removal it will further threaten all Christian’s Constitutional right to freely practice their religion. And it would threaten Arlington and other National Cemeteries where thousands of Crosses mark the graves of those why made the ultimate sacrifice in pursuit of Freedom. That cannot be allowed to happen.