Supreme Court Rules Mojave Desert Cross Can Stay

Apr 28, 2010

www.lc.org

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that a 75-year-old National World War I Memorial with an 8-foot cross, located in the Mojave Desert of California, can remain in place.

In Salazar v. Buono, the ACLU filed suit to remove the cross. Following the lower court ruling, the cross was covered with a cloth and now is boxed in with plywood so it looks like a blank sign. It remained that way pending this final decision. Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief in support of the memorial cross.

The memorial was originally erected in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) as a wooden cross with a plaque stating, “The Cross, Erected in Memory of the Dead of All Wars” and “Erected 1934 by Members of Veterans of Foreign Wars, Death Valley Post 2884.” Beginning in 1935, people gathered intermittently at the site for Easter services, and those services became a regular occurrence in 1984.

According to the National Parks Service, those gatherings by private parties somehow transformed the war memorial into a religious shrine of sorts and disqualified it from being included in the National Register of Historic Places. Congress then enacted a series of laws aimed at preserving the monument but the ACLU insisted that the cross be torn down.

Passive displays like the World War I Memorial, the Ten Commandments, Nativity scenes, or statements like the National Motto do not force anyone to participate in a religious exercise and, thus, do not establish religion. This case reveals the extremism of the ACLU. For 75 years this cross in the Mojave Desert did not disturb anyone. It stood as a memorial to the heroes of World War I.

Read our News Release for more details.

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