"""The U.S. Supreme Court has moved toward a greater accommodation between church and state, ruling that the lower courts went too far in ordering the dismantling of a cross erected on public land to honor the soldiers who died in World War I.
Using broad language, the court said the Constitution does not require the eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm.
The nation's national war memorials are by and large built on government land, using a combination of government and private funds. The World War I memorial is an exception. It is an 8-foot white cross originally erected on public land without the government's permission by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1937. As a memorial, it never got much attention until it became a legal cause celebre, courtesy of the cross that catapulted it into public controversy in the 21st century.
Anything that scares a Totenberg, masonic Kalvinists, or wahhabi-ists cain't be alll bad
The lower courts ruled that the cross on public land was an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion, and the Park Service made plans to dismantle it.
Then, Congress stepped in, declaring the cross the national war memorial for World War I, and transferring to the VWF the land on which the cross stands.
The lower courts, however, declared the measure an unconstitutional end run to avoid complying with the order to dismantle.
Rationale For Decision
The Supreme Court saw it differently Wednesday. Though the five justices in the majority wrote three separate opinions, delineating three different rationales, the principal opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, spoke in broad terms.
Although the cross is "a Christian symbol," said Kennedy, it was not placed on sunrise rock in the Mojave Desert to send "a Christian message." Nor was it placed there to put a government "imprimatur on a particular creed." Rather, he said, "those who erected the cross intended simply to honor our nation's fallen soldiers."
"The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion's role in society," Kennedy said....blah blah blah.
Dee-eep. The Mojave cross case relates to another mostly trivial matter. The USA faces economic crisis, environmental crisis (ie offshore drilling), immigration problems, yet the celebrity-solons of SCOTUS insist on bringing up some light-weight First Amendment issue, which allows them to wave the flag, win one for the gipper, and please the pious. The predictable NPRish response from the Totenbergs of the USA follows--an outrage! It's not an outrage--merely the proverbial tempest in the piss-pot.
The Cross may not be entirely PC--and Kennedy sounds disingenuous as usual--yet most of the soldiers who were stationed out at Twentynine Palms and other desert bases were mostly christians, whether one likes it or not. The descendants of the veterans approve. The court's recent ruling on campaign financing--whereby five men overthrew the Feingold/McCain legislation, supported by thousands, if not millions--featured an authentic cause celebre, and the decision, a reason for outrage.
You were ripped off by the Ernest Hemingway-code of stoical-secularism, Rube (or Rubette):
Papa Hem...... él está enterrado con la basura de la tierra
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