At Cross Purposes

Church and state collide with a cross on government land. The Mount Soledad cross has been the subject of legal battles for almost two decades.

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BY ALLEN MILIEFSKY’S count, there are approximately 20 plaques honoring Jewish war veterans at the memorial. His plaque, decorated with a Star of David, is among them. A commander of a San Diego branch of the Jewish War Veterans, Miliefsky says he doesn’t feel the cross is hurting anyone.

“It’s not offensive unless it is doing something against another religion,” says Miliefsky, a retired lieutenant colonel who spent 20 years in the U.S. Air Force. “It’s probably the most popular religious symbol of a soldier who has passed away. It’s a legal matter, and I understand that they don’t want one symbol that denotes one particular religion to be the symbol of any military monument, but for one religious group to take on another religious group does not win anybody any friends.”

The late George Swerdlow, a Jewish Air Force sergeant who served in World War II, has a plaque at the memorial that his wife, Adrienne, purchased. She says she doesn’t care about the cross; she cares about love.

“We used to go up there in the early 1990s, before it was a memorial,” says Adrienne Swerdlow. “It was our personal and romantic place. The fact that the cross was there didn’t affect us. We had a real love affair, and it’s a wonderful place for me to remember him. I’m more comfortable visiting him there than going to a cemetery.”

The most recent case from the Supreme Court on interpreting or applying the Establishment Clause—designed to prohibit the federal government from declaring and financially supporting a national religion—was Van Orden vs. Perry, a 2005 decision pertaining to the display of passive monuments, cited at the latest court hearing in April.

The Supreme Court ruled that a Ten Commandments monument on state property in Texas was constitutional. Four key factors, which will impact the fate of the Mount Soledad cross, were considered in determining its constitutionality:

1. The length of time the monument stood unchallenged. 2. Whether the monument gave a cultural as well as a religious message. 3. Whether removing the monument would incite hostility. 4. Whether the location of the monument was associated with or near a government building.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs against the Mount Soledad cross argue that cases prior to Van Orden are more relevant.

“Judge Burns of the Southern District of California will issue a decision on whether this veterans’ memorial is constitutional or not,” says the government’s lawyer, Nelson. “If the United States loses in the district court, the Solicitor General of the United States will decide whether to take the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.” Many feel that the appeals will continue until the issue regarding the Mount Soledad cross is taken before the Supreme Court.

Our founding fathers, who requested that President Washington proclaim a day of prayer after the First Amendment was proposed, could never have anticipated the legal complexities regarding the display of religious symbols so many years later. Whether the cross remains or is moved or torn down, the monument has certainly been critical in shaping our understanding of fairness, diversity and tolerance.

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