Mojave War Memorial Cross Stolen

A thief in the night cut down and stole the 7-foot cross that stood in the Mojave Desert for over 75-years and served as a war memorial. The National Park Service (NPS) says someone cut the metal bolts holding the metal-pipe cross to the top of Sunrise Rock and made off with it Sunday night or before dawn on Monday.

In 1934, the VFW erected a cross in the Mojave Desert as a memorial to their fallen brethren. In 1994, the VFW donated the land to the government for the Mojave Land Preserve.

In 1999, the ACLU demanded the cross removed because its display on federal land violated the Constitution's Establishment Clause. The ACLU went as far as threatening to go after individual park employees if the memorial was not torn down.

Henry and Wanda Sandoz landowners in the confines of the Preserve and caretakers of the memorial cross donated five acres of their own property to the NPS. This donation enabled the one acre encompassing the Mojave Cross to be returned to the VFW.

The ACLU was not deterred and in defiance of the wishes and rights of American land owners and veterans groups the ACLU waged their costly Supreme Court battle.

Click here to read more about the ACLU targeting the war memorial cross.

On Wednesday, April 28, 2010, it was reported that by a 5-4 vote, the SCOTUS refused to order the removal of a congressionally endorsed war memorial cross from its longtime home atop a remote rocky outcropping in California's Mojave Desert.

Justice Kennedy wrote "The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement [of religion] does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm, a cross by the side of a public highway marking, for instance, the place where a state trooper perished, need not be taken as a statement of governmental support for sectarian beliefs."

Justice Stevens and Obama appointee Sonia Sotomayer wrote in dissent along with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; this may be an indication of the direction the SCOTUS may end up if Obama's recent nomination of Elena Kagan to replace the retiring Stevens is successful.

During the many years the ACLU was targeting the memorial, the memorial was ordered covered and so it remained until the final ruling saved it.

In 1999, the ACLU distorted the Establishment Clause and our Constitution to wage their dishonorable battle against the veterans' memorial.

On Sunday night or very early Monday morning thieves did what the ACLU could not and tore down the Mojave War Memorial Cross.

Sources:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Supreme_Court/supreme-court-refuses-ban-mojave-cross/story?id=9536679&page=2

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/11/thieves-steal-mojave-desert-memorial-cross-nighttime-heist/