Should the cross at Mt. Soledad be removed? It does endore Christianity, but it’s been there for 52 years and it was there for 35 years without complaint. Nearly 2/3s of San Diegans voted to keep it.
Atheist, here, and pretty hard core about the seperation of church and state. Keep the cross where it is. For fuck’s sake, the name of the town is San Diego! If someone wants to get their panties in a bunch about a wholly meaningless recognition of religion by the government, let’s start with that.
I agree. It’s a non-issue, or should be. We all have bigger things to worry about.
Suing to get the cross removed makes about as much sense as suing to get “In God We Trust” of the money.
No – the latter would make more sense.
The wiki article gives some context.
Part of the controversy is who exactly owns the land. My tendancy would be to say leave it be, but lets not erect any more of these. I’d be interested in see what the case history on this issue is. The judge might have been compelled by precedent to rule as she did.
I’d say take it down, not that that’s going to surprise anyone. Seperation between church and state is tattered enough as it is.
I say, judging from Wikipedia, that the cross is ugly. Not quite butt-ugly, but ugly all the same.
Interestingly, it appears that steps were taken by a non-profit to make the cross politically more difficult to remove:
That aside, note that the legal issues relate to the California Constitution, not the Federal one.
One of my first thoughts as well.
From a strict church-state standpoint, yeah, it probably ought to go, although there are many other higher priorities (IMHO). But given the notoriously bad PR that the various secularist crowds have in this country, it might make more sense to leave this one alone.
I like a strong barrier between Church and State as well, but minor gov’t nods to Christianity that have been standing for more then half a century aren’t really my number one concern. Also, given the fact that longstanding public monuments like this become points of pride to communities (even, or maybe especailly, when they’re butt ugly), so that tearing them down leads to bad feelings, etc. Let the cross stay, but don’t build anymore of them seems like a good answer.
I’m not a Christian, and I agree that the cross is muy ugly, but I think it should stay.
Putting up any NEW symbols of Christianity (or other relgions) would have me marching in the streets, but I just don’t think it’s practical or even possible to root out 230 years of unreflexive mainstream Christianity from our government. One fifty-year-old billboard saying “Christianity” on the top of a mountain doesn’t really constitute the establishment of a state religion.
Man, what a complicated issue. Before I read the article, I thought “Why not sell the land it’s on to a private organization?” and was happy to see that was the first attempt at resolving this. But obviously that had complications of its own.
I’m for a very strong SOCAS, and I would prefer the cross to go. But the hassle doesn’t seem worth it. I’d let this one slide, unless someone comes up with an elegant solution.
I gotta say, I find the claim that a giant Christian cross in the middle of a public park is a “war memorial” to be more offensive than just coming out and saying it’s a giant Christian memorial to Jesus Christ and all things Christian. Not only are there no atheists in foxholes but there aren’t any Jews either?
That makes one wonder what the atmosphere in that area was like when it was first erected. Still, I think rather than taking down the cross (which would generate a TON of ill will), it would be better to add more diverse religious symbols to accomodate the other faiths of the fallen soldiers.
This country is a constitutional democracy whose underlying premise is that the public majority has total power over the government, but that the Constitution has total power over the public majority.
I live about ten miles from said cross, and it dominates the landscape and can be seen for miles. It’s absolutely an establishment of religion, and a disgusting one at that; there’s a giant frickin cross looming over the city! You can’t do that on public property. Anyway, its removal has been mandated by the courts for a couple years now, but the local Christian groups are trying to put up roadblocks and making asses of themselves and embarrassing our city in the process. A local church wanted to move the cross to its property; why aren’t we doing that?
The thing is supposed to have gone down for about 2 or 3 years now. I think the view on this is that “those ACLU tree-huggers” are wasting public time and money trying to get it taken down; the fact of the matter is that it wouldn’t be there and we wouldn’t be wasting our time and money on it if the Christian groups weren’t getting their panties in a bunch about it. Stop wasting time and cut the thing down already.
They both make a lot of sense–I don’t think religion should be endorsed on my coins either, although to be honest I don’t lose any sleep over it–the key difference is that nobody has to sue, the damn thing is supposed to be down already.
“Should we desegregate the schools? Sure, it’s racism, but it’s been around for a while and it works just fine.”
My ass. It’s only going to get worse if we give up and just take it in the rear after we legally won. What’s next? We elect a president and then the right blocks the counting of his votes so that they can put a bible-thumper in his place?
Oh, wait…
Our war memorials should commemorate the bravery and strength of our national heroes, without regard to their faith or lack thereof. There’s no way we can accomodate every shade of religious belief that any soldier has ever had, so we should just take the damn thing down (as has been legally mandated!) and, if we want, replace it with a real war memorial.
It has been legally mandated by one federal court. I’ll bet you that if this goes to the Supremes, they will let it stay. Will you then say that we should let it stay because it was legally sanctioned (no pun intended)?
More accurately, it would be better to try. I’m sure there would be at least as much outrage as over it’s removal, and the resulting outpouring of Christian bigotry would make it’s removal more acceptable IMHO.
I wish there was a good way to tie this into the anti-illegal immigration crusade; given the politics, I bet that a lot of the people who don’t care that the cross is unConstitutional are the same who rant that illegal aliens are all criminal scum because crossing the border is illegal. I’d like to hear them try to defend that little contradiction.
“So breaking the law is always wrong, even to feed your children ?”
“Yes ! The law is the law !”
“So you’ve changed your mind, and agree that the cross should come down ?”
“. . . . That’s different !”
No; such a blatantly political/religious/illegal ruling would deserve no respect. I don’t respect the ruling that stuck Bush in office either. For that matter, after that, I just plain don’t respect them; they’re corrupt scum, as far as I’m concerned.