SCOTUS restores Mojave Cross!!!

[jinxmchue]

High court says Mojave cross in Calif. can stay

By MARK SHERMAN
The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 28, 2010; 10:54 AM

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court said Wednesday that a federal court went too far in ordering the removal of a congressionally endorsed war memorial cross from its longtime home in California.

In ruling the cross could stay, the justices said federal judges in California did not take sufficient notice of the government's decision to transfer the land in a remote area of California to private ownership. The move was designed to eliminate any constitutional concern about a religious symbol on public land.

The ruling was 5-4, with the court's conservatives in the majority.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars erected the cross more than 75 years ago atop an outcropping in the Mojave National Preserve.

It has been covered with plywood for the past several years following the court rulings. Court papers describe the cross as 5 feet to 8 feet tall.

"Here one 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," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/28/AR2010042801949.html

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FANTASTIC!!!!  PRAISE GOD!!!!  UNCOVER THAT CROSS!!!!

[Chris_]

Excellent!!  A long and unfortunately totally unnecessary battle.........

doc

[jinxmchue]

Leave it to the liberal NPR to try to find a silver lining in the case against the cross:

Supreme Court Sends 'Mojave Cross' Case Back For More Work (please go recommend my comment there    )

A lower court was wrong to invalidate a plan that would keep the "Mojave cross" on top of a rock formation in what is now the Mojave National Preserve, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision announced this morning.

The court did not directly address the issue that had brought the case national attention: Whether the cross, because it is on federal land, violates the Constitution's ban on government establishment of religion.

Instead, the opinion (written by Justice Anthony Kennedy) focuses on the question of whether lower courts were right in rejecting a plan to transfer control of the land around the cross from the government to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which placed the cross on the rock in 1934.

"A court may order an injunction only after taking into account all the circumstances bearing on the need for prospective relief," the opinion reads. "Here, the Dis-trict Court did not engage in the appropriate inquiry. The land-transfer statute was a substantial change in circumstances bearing on the propriety of the requested relief. By dismissing as illicit themotives of Congress in passing it, the District Court took insufficient account of the context in which the statute was enacted and the rea-sons for its passage."

The case now goes back to the lower courts.

Um, no.  It doesn't.  Salazar was about the legality of the land transfer.  SCOTUS has ruled that the land transfer was legit.  End of story.  No lower court can change that now.  The cross now stands on private land and any and all attacks against it based upon the "separation of church and state" are null and void.

[Godot showed up]

But they didn't tackle the main issue, though, which is that, although government should be essentially non-religious in character, it should not be anti-religious. A cross on federal land is not, for the love of Pete, "excessive entaglement." If it is, they're going to have to re-landscape all of Arlington National Cemetary.

[tiny1]

But they didn't tackle the main issue, though, which is that, although government should be essentially non-religious in character, it should not be anti-religious. A cross on federal land is not, for the love of Pete, "excessive entaglement." If it is, they're going to have to re-landscape all of Arlington National Cemetary.

SSSSSSH!!  Don't give the "Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers" any ideas.

[NHSparky]

What pisses me off is that it SHOULD have been a 9-0 decision.  I'm guessing the "wise Latina" was in the minority.  THIS is why elections have consequences, kids.

[The Village Idiot]

great news

[Mike220]

What pisses me off is that it SHOULD have been a 9-0 decision.  I'm guessing the "wise Latina" was in the minority.  THIS is why elections have consequences, kids.

You are correct, sir.

For:
John Roberts
Antonin Scalia
Anthony Kennedy
Clarence Thomas
Samuel Alito

Against:
John Paul Stevens
Sonia Sotomayor
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen Breyer

[Airwolf]

Thank GOD for once they got it right. To the lurking DUmmies and all of thier kind.

Suck it . Suck it long and suck it hard.

[Chris_]

Thank GOD for once they got it right. To the lurking DUmmies and all of thier kind.

Suck it . Suck it long and suck it hard.

...and then suck it again lurkers....

[Hawkgirl]

Good news...BUT...it was close...we need another conservative in the SCOTUS, just in case.

[IassaFTots]

You are correct, sir.

For:
John Roberts
Antonin Scalia
Anthony Kennedy
Clarence Thomas
Samuel Alito

Against:
John Paul Stevens
Sonia Sotomayor
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen Breyer

Thanks for posting.  I saw Stevens, and Breyer's dissent, but I couldn't locate a total.  I didn't look all that hard, I guess.

[Red October]

But they didn't tackle the main issue, though, which is that, although government should be essentially non-religious in character, it should not be anti-religious. A cross on federal land is not, for the love of Pete, "excessive entaglement." If it is, they're going to have to re-landscape all of Arlington National Cemetary.

Not to mention scrapping the Marine Corps' Toys 4 Tots program.

[Red October]

What pisses me off is that it SHOULD have been a 9-0 decision.  I'm guessing the "wise Latina" was in the minority.  THIS is why elections have consequences, kids.

It wouldn't be 9-0 if the question was if it should be legal to burn a flag while simultaneously pissing on a soldier's grave.  Who are you kidding?

[littlelamb]

Good