Associated Baptist Press - Appeals Court says CA Cross on Public Land Must Go

By Robert Marus, Managing Editor & Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press

SAN DIEGO (ABP) -- A federal appeals court has ruled that a four-story-tall cross atop an oceanside promontory in an exclusive San Diego suburb must be removed because it sits on public land.

The Jan. 4 decision in Jewish War Veterans v. City of San Diego is being hailed by church-state separationists and decried by conservative Christian groups, who have called it a judicial slap in the face of veterans. The cross has, in recent years, been re-fashioned as a war memorial.

This is a flawed decision that not only strikes at the heart of honoring our military veterans, it reaches a faulty conclusion that this iconic memorial -- part of the historic landscape of San Diego -- is unconstitutional, said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, in a blog entry. Sekulows group filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case defending the cross. . . .

The complete story is available here.