Controversial cross at center of case reportedly stolen

LAS VEGAS — A simple metal-pipe cross in the middle of the Mojave Desert that inspired a passionate Supreme Court debate about religious freedom has reportedly been stolen. The cross — successor to one first erected as a World War I memorial in 1934 — stood atop Sunrise Rock, next to a road in a remote part of California’s Mojave National Preserve. The location is about 70 miles south of Las Vegas and 200 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

According to The Associated Press report, National Park Service officials said the crime was discovered May 10 when a service employee was sent to replace the wooden box that covered the cross, which itself had been destroyed by vandals over the weekend prior to the theft.

The employee discovered the cross missing, with the bolts that had connected it to its concrete mount cut.

Motives for the theft, the Park Service said, could range from a protest against the April 28 Supreme Court ruling in the cross’s favor to a case of common thieves seeking scrap metal.

But a conservative religious legal group that argued in favor of the cross declared the theft vandalism and appealed for funds to erect a replacement in a website posting May 11. The Liberty Institute noted, as part of its appeal, that the legal wrangling over the cross isn’t finished.