SAN DIEGO, California — One of the nation’s longest-running conflicts between church and state may end in a win-win resolution with the sale of a 43-foot cross located on public land to a private association.
The U.S. Department of Defense sold the half-acre parcel atop Mount Soledad in San Diego, California, July 17 for $1.5 million to the Mount Soledad Memorial Association, a nonprofit entity that has overseen maintenance and administration of the Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial since its inception in 1954.
Some observers say the property transfer, authorized in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015 signed by President Barack Obama in December 2014, could finally resolve a 25-year legal dispute. In 2011 the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined the monument to be a clear violation of the First Amendment ban on government establishment of religion.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal, leaving the appellate court’s ruling in place and sending the case to lower courts for resolution. A district judge ruled in December 2013 that the cross must come down within 90 days but stayed the order pending an appeal. The federal government said it would appeal the 9th Circuit ruling at the proper time but put it on hold when the land transfer was suggested in 2014.
(BNG)
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