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Washington, DC – 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. Today’s ruling was a fractured, plurality ruling. Justice Kennedy announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Chief Justice Roberts joined and in which Justice Alito joined in part. Roberts filed a concurring opinion. Alito filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. Justice Scalia filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Justice Thomas joined. Justice Stevens filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor joined. Justice Breyer filed a dissenting opinion.

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, including, most recently, a land exchange that would transfer ownership of the land upon which the monument rests to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in exchange for its donation of an equivalent piece of property to the Parks Service. But the ACLU insisted that the cross be torn down. The Supreme Court ruling allows the cross to stay for now, but the case will be sent back to the district court with instructions to consider the significant change brought about by the transfer of land to private parties.

Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented: “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. Removing this memorial would be an insult to our war veterans. Doing so under the guise of the First Amendment is an insult to the Framers of the Constitution. For now the cross will remain. The Constitution should not depend on 5-4 votes with fractured opinions. If the courts returned to the original understanding of the Constitution, then these First Amendment religion cases would be easy. The next Justice on the Supreme Court must be committed to upholding the rule of law and the original intent of the Constitution.”

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