A 27-foot-tall cross, positioned on top of Mount Soledad in San Diego’s La Jolla neighborhood, which served as a veterans’ memorial, is no longer threatened with being removed, after the half acre property on which it is perched, worth $1.4 million, was recently sold to a private group called Mount Soledad Memorial Association. The completion of the sale makes the group, which has maintained the property since 1954, its sole decision-maker for the first time in its history.
“It marks the first time where our membership can manage the Memorial's affairs from a place of ownership and accountability for the property, which is a new and welcomed step for the Association,” Bruce Bailey, President and CEO of the Association's Board of Trustees, said in a statement.
The all-cash purchase, which was completed on July 17, brought an end to a 25-year-long legal battle that posed threat to the cross’ existence, as the most noticeable feature of the veterans’ memorial.
First erected in 1954 as a memorial for veterans of the Korean War, the constitutionality of the cross on government property was first challenged in 1989, when American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the city of San Diego, while representing atheist war veteran Philip Paulson, on grounds that the religious structure’s existence on state-owned property infringed upon California’s constitutional provision for the separation of church and state.
Initially, lower courts ruled in favor of ACLU and Paulson, with district Judge Gordon Thompson ordering San Diego to get rid of the cross or pay a fine of $5,000 each day if it failed to do so by the end of 2006. However, when the city went on to appeal at the United States Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy, acting solely on behalf of the court, stayed Thompson’s ruling, thus giving the city enough time to explore other legal options that were available.
During the 25-year-long legal battle, Paulson died of a terminal illness and fellow atheist war veteran Steven Trunk became the plaintiff in the case. The ACLU also received support from Jewish war veterans when it decided to take the case to court for the nth time. After much hullabaloo and several appeals, a federal judge ruled in 2013 that the cross had to be taken down, but by then, the non-profit group Mount Soledad Memorial Association had managed to enough funds to buy the property from the federal government.
“We are honored to now own this property and will continue to recognize our nation's veterans with the same spirit of integrity our Association has demonstrated for the past 60 years,” Bailey said.
Apart from the cross, the memorial now has a 35-foot-tall flagpole and over 3,700 plaques honoring individual war veterans, including those who are living as well as those who have passed away after having served in various wars, from the American Revolutionary War of 1775 to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. The group also organizes yearly events for Memorial Day and Veterans Week along with organizing 40 other events each year with the aim to honor individual war veterans.
Photo Credits: Fox News
