ACLJ: Supreme Court Should Uphold Cross Display in CA's Mojave Desert; ACLJ to File Amicus Brief in Case

(Washington, DC) - The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) - which focuses on constitutional law - said today the Supreme Court has an important opportunity to protect a long-standing display of a cross that represents a war memorial in the Mojave Desert in California.  The Supreme Court said today it would hear the California case where a federal appeals court has ordered the removal of the cross, rejecting a move by Congress to transfer the ownership of the land upon which the cross sits to a private party.

 
"This is a critical case that will once again put the spotlight on the constitutionality of religious displays and the proper role of the government and its actions," said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, who argued a First Amendment case at the Supreme Court this term.  "The fact is that the land transfer in this case is appropriate and constitutional. There's nothing wrong with the government transferring property containing symbols with religious significance to private parties.  We're hopeful that the high court will conclude that the long-standing display of this cross does not create a constitutional crisis and that the action by the federal government represented a constitutionally-sound solution."
 
Some of the legal issues involved in this case are similar to issues in an ACLJ case currently pending before the Supreme Court. The ACLJ case, Duchesne City v. Summum (No. 07-690), is being held by the high court pending the decision in the Pleasant Grove City v. Summum (No. 07-665) case, which Sekulow argued before the high court in November.  In that case, the ACLJ represents the city of Pleasant Grove, Utah and had asked the high court to overturn a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit that ordered Pleasant Grove City to accept and display a monument from a self-described church called Summum because the city displays a Ten Commandments monument donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles. 
 
The ACLJ contended that the Tenth Circuit made a serious error by confusing government speech with private speech. In its briefs, the ACLJ argues that "a citys selection of which items to display in a park like its selection of decorations for government buildings is government speech, and no private entity can claim a Me too! right of access for its own preferred displays." 

You can read the ACLJ opening brief here and the reply brief here. A decision in that case could come at any time from the Supreme Court.
 
In the Mojave Desert case, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) built a cross more than 70 years ago to memorialize fallen service members in a remote area that is now part of a federal preserve. After the National Park Service denied a request to build a Buddhist shrine near the cross in 1999 and declared its intent to remove the cross, Congress designated the cross and an area of adjoining property as a national World War I memorial. 
 
A lawsuit was filed challenging the cross and, after the federal district court held that the federal governments display of the cross violated the Establishment Clause, Congress directed the Department of the Interior to convey one acre of property that included the memorial to the VFW in exchange for a five-acre parcel of equal value.  But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit determined that the cross - and the land transfer - violated the Establishment Clause.
 
The ACLJ said it will file an amicus brief supporting the government's position in the California case.  The case is Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, et al., v. Buono (08-472).
 
Led by Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, the American Center for Law and Justice focuses on constitutional law and is based in Washington, D.C.