Finally, some welcome news from the Supreme Court: The Mount Soledad cross in San Diego — a huge cross on public land — is still unconstitutional.
The controversy has been going on since 1989 and it’s finally over now that the Court declined to hear a challenge to its unconstitutionality:
It’s been a long wait for justice. Steve [Trunk] won his legal challenge before the appeals court in January 2011. The lawsuit actually began in 1989, when Philip Paulson, a Vietnam vet and atheist, first sued. Paulson, who became FFRF’s premiere Atheist in Foxhole awardee first won his case in federal court in 1991. But it has taken more than 21 years to enforce that ruling. Steve Trunk, also a Vietnam vet and atheist, joined the case when Paulson was dying, ensuring the continuation of what has to be one of the longest-running Establishment Clause cases in U.S. history.
The American Humanist Association is also pleased with the Court’s decision not to hear an appeal to the case:
“The Supreme Court’s decision today rightly affirms the Ninth Circuit court’s conclusion that the Mt. Soledad cross amounts to an unconstitutional endorsement of Christianity on public land,” said Bill Burgess, attorney and legal coordinator of the American Humanist Association’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center. “The cross is an exclusively Christian symbol, and it dominates the memorial in such a way that an observer is left to conclude that Christianity is favored by the government.”
Enjoy the victory for a few days before the Court screws everything up again.
