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Published: June 9, 2009
“Anti-cross agenda”
ACLU’s attack on Mojave Desert memorial to war veterans reaches U.S. Supreme Court
News release from Thomas More Law Center
Monday, June 8, 2009
ANN ARBOR, MI – The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, announced today that it has filed a friend of the court brief opposing the ACLU’s campaign to tear down another war memorial cross.
 At issue is a small cross originally erected on Sunrise Rock in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in memory of the dead of all wars. The cross is located in California’s Mojave Desert, in a remote area where the only visible signs of human activity are off-road vehicles and trail hikers. The ACLU succeeded in its anti-cross agenda by obtaining a ruling in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals holding that the cross violated the so-called separation of church and state. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case, Ken Salazar v. Frank Buono.
When the Supreme Court considers the case, it will have in its file a compelling brief supporting the use of crosses in war memorials filed by the Thomas More Law Center. Joining the Law Center’s brief is the Individual Rights Foundation.
“Through our brief and the compelling stories of the war heroes we represent, we want the court to feel the devastating impact removing crosses will have on those who have sacrificed so much for this country,” commented Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel for the Law Center. “Since the beginning of America, crosses have been used to memorialize our fallen war veterans and to give solace to their families and comrades. Ironically, the Ninth Circuit used the very constitution these veterans defended with their lives to order the destruction of the memory of their heroic sacrifices. Sadly, the cross in the Mojave Desert is currently covered from view until the appeal is resolved.”
The Law Center’s brief was filed on behalf of former Navy pilot and Vietnam prisoner of war Rear Admiral Jeremiah Denton, USN (Ret.) and the families of Marine Majors Michael D. Martino and Gerald Bloomfield, III, both of whom were killed in combat in Iraq on November 2, 2005, when their attack helicopter was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. The memories and sacrifices of these war heroes are now preserved by plaques located under another cross, the cross at the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial in San Diego. The Law Center successfully defended that cross, but the cross is the subject of another lawsuit brought against the federal government by the ACLU.
Should the Supreme Court affirm the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, the cross at Mt. Soledad, which has been the subject of much litigation over the past twenty years, will be threatened as well. A recent ACLU case challenging the Mt. Soledad cross is currently on appeal to the Ninth Circuit. The Law Center has been actively involved in the successful defense of the Mt. Soledad cross for many years.
Jeremiah Denton, a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, a veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, a prisoner of war from July 18, 1965 to February 13, 1973, a former U.S. Senator from the State of Alabama, also serves as the chairman of the Thomas More Law Center’s Advisory Board. Admiral Denton first came to the attention of the American public during a television interview arranged by his North Vietnamese captors in 1966. Expected to give “proper responses” to a journalist’s recitation of alleged American war atrocities, Admiral Denton affirmed his faith in America, stating, “I will support it as long as I live.” While responding to questions from his interrogator, Admiral Denton blinked his eyes in Morse Code, repeatedly spelling out the covert message “TORTURE.” His message was the first confirmation that American POWs were being tortured.
During his nearly eight years as a POW, Admiral Denton was subjected to severe torture. He became the first American military captive to be subjected to four years of solitary confinement. Admiral Denton’s extraordinary account of his endurance and sacrifice for our country while imprisoned in North Vietnam was told in his 1976 book, When Hell Was in Session. In 2008, Admiral Denton’s incredible sacrifice for our country – a horrific sacrifice that is unimaginable to most Americans – was honored and memorialized at the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial. A plaque in his honor was placed under the cross at the veterans’ memorial during a ceremony held on September 19, 2008, the 2008 National POW/MIA Recognition Day.
Previously, in May 2006, Major Martino and Major Bloomfield’s unit, which had recently returned from Iraq, sponsored a plaque-dedication ceremony at the memorial to commemorate the fallen Marines’ heroic service and to provide a place to honor them. More than three hundred Marines stood in line in the hot sun for over three hours to meet the Marines’ families and to pay respect for their fallen comrades.
These ceremonies reveal the importance of such memorials, which provide a lasting tribute to our servicemen and servicewomen. They provide places where family members, friends, and comrades of our war veterans can pay tribute to their heroes’ sacrifices. Consequently, these memorials, including the crosses, convey an unmistakably American message of patriotism and self-sacrifice; they do not “establish” Christianity as a national religion, as the ACLU and others who are hostile to religion contend.
Robert Muise, the Thomas More Law Center attorney who authored the brief, is a former Marine officer himself. Said Muise, “Our brief demonstrates that removing crosses from veterans’ memorials will cause real, irreparable harm to our war heroes and their grieving families, as compared with the contrived ‘harm’ the ACLU and others who are hostile to religion will ‘feel’ because the memorial crosses remain. Indeed, those that are hostile to our religious heritage are creating the very sort of religiously-based divisiveness that our Constitution was designed to prohibit.”
Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 12:05 AM By Dan
I wish the ACLU would just go away.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 6:19 AM By Canisius
The ACLU will fight for the rights of pedophiles at NAMBLA, but will stop at nothing to strip this nation of Crosses and Creches.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 7:56 AM By Richard Flores
It sounds as if we need to teach the ACLU and the 9th circuit how to read the constitution! As numerous comments have properly noted, there is NO "separation of church and state" clause ANYWHERE in the constitution! It is time for the Congress to make note of this and take whatever action is necessary to STOP the legislation from the bench of these activist judges! (It's pretty sad, but it appears as if we need to actually pass some type of legislation to STOP the illegal judicial legislation that the ACLU is using to attack God!)
The 9th circuit is famous for its ultra-liberal opinions! They provide the prefect example for modifying the appointment of federal judges for life! We need to revisit the entire concept as the abuse of their power is destroying our legal system. There is NO attempt to provide "justice", only to further their liberal agendas!
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 8:27 AM By Ron
Stop the hate! Outlaw the ACLU.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 9:31 AM By Maria
When I saw the pictures that were broadcast from Normandy of the grave site for WWII soldiers, the vision of row upon row of standing crosses was my moving memory of veteran's cemeteries in the past. In the U.S. this is no longer the case. I am saddened because those crosses help to make sense of the pain of losing someone who was in the flower of youth, someone who willingly sacrificed their own life and comfort and happiness to guarantee our rights and freedom. They also give hope to those of us who have received the Gospel... Maybe that is what these people find so disturbing. These so-called defenders of our Constitution forget the original intention of the men and women who worked, suffered and sacrificed to establish this nation as a haven for religious TOLERANCE. Not intolerance. If I have to look at the tasteless, obnoxious advertising and be exposed to inescapable scandalous displays and accept all of these as part of the free expression protected by the laws of this country, what terrible injury do they endure in the mere silent presence of a cross? Or a Star of David? Or any sign or symbol of faith? This behaviour is intolerant, tyrannical and irrational. Their "freedom from religion" is a brand of oppression that we have seen before in communist countries to the detriment of millions. If they are seeking free exercise of human rights, they should not seek to offer the American people LESS than the Europe that so many of the founder's ancestors left now offers to its people. What a tragic irony.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 10:20 AM By Tee
I agree with the comment of Maria. In denying our fallen a cross or Star of David, are we also significantly denying the Judeo Christian roots of this country for which these men and women have died in the service of or in defending? I certainly think so.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 10:34 AM By betty
Right on, Robert Muise. It couldn't be said better. Thank you and I hope these men's families are thanking you too.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 11:17 AM By tony
No wonder they call it the 9th circus court!
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 11:34 AM By Peter
Tee - The defenders at Normandy were defending our country. Period. It is offensive to even suggest that they died in a holy war defending the Judeo-Christian "roots" of this country . . .
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 12:28 PM By John Feeney
More proof that the ACLU is a left wing hate group. May God have mercy on America.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 1:13 PM By St. Christopher
Both my Father and Mother have crosses on their headstones at Arlington, a national cemetery. What does constitutional "protection" does this violate? (The ACLU position is particularly offensive when one reads the constitution, which does not include the phrase "separation of church and state," which is a construct of Thomas Jefferson and others in America's founding.) The phrase "judge made law" has become a truism in current America, but it is nonetheless freshly offensive at each occurrence. Now this country is faced with Ms. Sotomayor, an accomplished student and trial lawyer and judge, but not a legal thinker of the kind needed on the Supreme Court. What a fool President Obama is to think that Americans fail to understand what he is trying to do. The ACLU, and other groups, are simply "useful idiots" to the liberalist causes being advanced at the highest political levels. Such a crime in the face of true heroism for which the cross stands as a constant reminder. Remember that Hitler had laws and courts too, and their sense of the "Rule of Law" was to confiscate property and then lives of Jews and other disliked groups within the Nazi empire. We are not far off and the current judicial system serves merely to rubber stamp political thuggery and the staining of America's icons. Not only should this case be lost by the ACLU but the attorneys in it, and the political side that supports it, should leave the United States, as their is no reconciling what they are advancing with the ideals of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" as set forth in the Declaration of Independence.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 1:14 PM By JLS
Neither is the ACLU nor the 9th Circuit Court defending anything at all. They are actually attacking and destroying the society that they live in, and which defends them. They are fools.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 1:51 PM By JLS
Peter, the soldiers who liberated Europe from the Nazi empire and who died from it mostly have white crosses on their graves, and a few have the Star of David; you should read Battle Cry by Leon Uris. As a child growing up in WLA, we would frequently pass by the Veterans Cemetary in Westwood. Later when I would commute to and from UCLA next to it via bicycle I would take the short cut through that cemetary. It is amazing how many rows and columns of white crosses there are there. I don't know of any rainbow headstones or crescents there. Probably not many markers with atheist engravings either. Oh yeah, and prior to that we used to run drag races late at night right alongside the cemetary, which gave us over a mile to accelerate and then decelerate (before we reached the fire station and woke the firemen sleeping there). And then on my first Boy Scout camping trip our car and trailer caravan passed right by that Veterans graveyard ... the fathers had mostly been in combat ... and were given the perhaps classic riddle, "Nobody living within five miles of this graveyard is allowed to be buried there" ('cause society does not bury living people in the United States, even though the soldiers planted in that place had fought and won the same courtesy in Europe, that is to say the courtesy of preventing more people from being buried alive, which Hitler's deathcamps did. So, Peter, tell us where to find the graveyards of homosexual activists or gay couples who kept this nation free from being defeated by foreign military attacks.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 2:42 PM By Bill
How about we replace the cross with a symbol for another religion on a rotating basis? Or maybe put a menagerie of religious symbols out there along with the cross? Any takers? No solution will satisfy everyone.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 4:12 PM By Life Lady
I would like to know where the ACLU gets off defending anything but their own amoral values. It is apalling that they have been allowed to continue to attack the very foundation that this country was built upon. We ARE a Christian nation, one that is built upon the premis that all people are equal, that we all enjoy life, or at the very least have the right to that life, and we can speak our minds, and enjoy freedoms that no other country in the world enjoys.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 5:54 PM By Linda
ACLU really stands for Anti Christian League United.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 7:37 PM By Anne T.
Good grief! that cross was put there because the majority of the fighting men and women buried there were of some Christian denomination. No Christian I know is offended when they see a Star of David or other religious symbol on a military grave. I would consider it the right of the family who buried the person to chose what religious symbol to use for their loved one. This whole thing is ridiculous. Next they will want to get rid of the Battle Hymn of the Republic because it mentions Christ. Oops! sorry I mentioned that. It might give some person with too much time and money on their hands an idea.
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Posted Tuesday, June 09, 2009 10:54 PM By Captain Jack
This article is poorly written. It says, "At issue is a small cross originally erected on Sunrise Rock in 1934" in the Mojave Desert. But 90% of the article is about the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial in San Diego, which is nowhere near Sunrise Rock. Sunrise Rock is out in the middle of nowhere between Barstow and Las Vegas. Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial is in San Diego, and was transferred to the federal government in August 2006. It doesn't have a "small cross" like the one in the picture. It has a 29-foot cross erected in 1954. There is no 29-foot Jewish star, and no 29-foot Wiccan symbol, and no 29-foot symbol for any of the other 40 religions the federal government recognizes. Just a big Christian cross at the center of the memorial, rising above everything else. As such, it is clearly a Christian war memorial operated by the federal government.
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Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 8:55 AM By Abeca Christian
Good grief, the ACLU is truly the enemy here. What business is it theirs to oppose such beautiful cross? They make me want to yell bloody hell (like a Englishmen would at the high decks of their boat when they lost their nets) but luckily for them I am a Christian and well I have learned to be temperate. They benefit from us being Christian because we don't stoop their level. We are better than that but fight we must, we cannot allow them to take away our roots!
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Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 10:35 AM By JLS
Where exactly is the Mojave Cross? Lat and long would be helpful, or the name/number of the road or trail that leads to it, and from which highway.
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Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 1:08 PM By Captain Jack
35°17'52''N 115°32'05''W. It's a little more than 10 miles. south of Interstate 15 on the east side of Cima Rd.
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Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 1:34 PM By Captain Jack
To note, that was the location where you can camp. For the actual cross itself, use 35° 18' 57.60"N, 115° 32' 52.80"W. There's a pulloff on Cima Rd if you just to drive by and look. The cross is about 1/4 mile off the road and covered with a plywood box.
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Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 3:07 PM By Anne T.
Captain Jack, how many of the military people buried at Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial were of another faith than Christianity when that Cross was put up? I doubt if there were very many Wiccans or some other minority religions (in THIS country) at that time, if any. The large cross there was put up because of the large amount of Christians buried there. If there were a lot of Jewish people buried there, then they should have a large Star of David too. If the amount of other non-Christians buried there is small, it would not be or is not necessary to put up a large symbol for that religion since every service person can have whatever symbol they want on their graves. I have seen Jewish sections in military cemetaries, and I have no problem with that at all. If they are entitled to a large symbol of their faith, then put one up. Come on people! how about some common sense here?
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Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 3:20 PM By JLS
Thanks, Captain Jack. We jeep out in those regions, but haven't run into that great Cross. We'll have to do that next time we're out that way. Hey I just remembered that I've seen Cima Road or its sign or on Google Earth or somewhere!
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Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 7:51 PM By Martha
Rather than erecting giant symbols for every religion (which seems rather silly not to mention impractical due to space limitations), one option is for the government to remove the giant cross and replace it with a smaller one (or ones) in line with the size of other symbols. The dead won't care. They don't view symbols. Other national cemeteries and memorials use small symbols for each person's grave or memorial, according to that person's personal religion. No dead person has ever complained about that policy.
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Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 8:23 PM By Anne T.
Furthermore, the Veterans of Foreign Wars first put that cross up in 1934. I am sure most or all of the particular group who paid for it were Christians, voted to pay for it and the donations came from their own pockets, dues, etc. So what's the 'beef"? Any religious group is free to do the same, or do some just want something about which to complain?
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Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 9:16 PM By Anne T.
I might be wrong about the Jewish section in military cemeteries. The one I saw might have been in a private cemetery.
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Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 9:22 PM By JLS
Martha, space limitations don't exactly apply to the Mojave Desert. You're right, Martha, that no dead person complains, but there are numerous people who have died and yet risen in Christ, and they pray for us, they love to have memorial crosses put up on earth, where their prayers do lots of good. I think the government ought to fund more such Christian memorials, but not any for other religions. In fact, I think Obama would do well to visit the Archbishop of Washington and confess his sins, and enter an RCIA course ... just imagine if he were to repent of his evil ways and become a new member of the Catholic Church. I wonder if there would be any fatwas issued on him in such a case.
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Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 9:52 PM By Martha
I wasn't talking about the cross in the Mojave desert preserve. I was talking about the one in San Diego. Giant symbols of all the religions won't fit there, neither spacewise nor designwise. As to the cross in the Mojave desert preserve, Anne T is incorrect. No religious group is free to erect religious symbols there today. It's prohibited. The property is no longer privately owned but now belongs to the federal government.
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Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 11:22 PM By JLS
Maybe Martha does not know any veterans who shed their blood for her. Recently I visited an uncle who took one in the lung on the beach at Iwo Jima. Those things make their marks. Also last Saturday an email went around with a Youtube video interview of an old man who fought as a ranger in the D-Day invasion, of his unit of 222 men scaling the cliff under fire, 12 lived and then only to find the paratroops they were to meet up with had been masacred by the Germans ... he says they found them with their noses. That would have been a lot of blood in the air; last hunting season I nicked a flyby quail, small gamebird, must have been with one pellet, and I could smell the blood in the air. Just think, Martha, what gallons of spilled human blood must have smelled like to those dozen rangers as they moved forward expecting to meet their paratroop buddies. They kept going for you, Martha. Can you imagine it? They gave up their lives, their blood and some body parts for you. My Grandfather came back for commanding an infantry company on the Western Front, with parts of fingers missing ... that never bothered him much, but what did was the artillery in the many months of bombardment. Many of those American soldiers were kicking up their heels for you Martha; of course they were no longer attached to their bodies. My Grandfather is part of me, Martha; even though he does not look up from the grave to see a big Cross overhead, I look for him; I see the Cross in his place. I wonder why he risked his life for you, but he did. And so did millions of other Americans, hundreds of thousands of whom died for you, Martha. And you spit on them and me and all those who love that you are free to do so.
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Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 11:04 AM By JLS
Martha, the prohibition is unconstitutional, because it puts the government in the business of defining and regulating religion. A. The Mojave Desert is not all a preserve. B. There is private property in the Mojave Desert, lots of it. What your motive is, whether you realize it or not, is to globalize the United States by calling for UN treaties to interfere with the sovereign nature of the US. You can keep your blue helmet out of this nation.
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Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 1:12 PM By Martha
JLS, descendants, friends and supporters of deceased veterans are of every religion, just as living veterans are of every religion. The U.S.A. is of every religion. They are not all of the Christian religion. Jewish veterans are suing. They feel spit upon by the giant Latin cross. Those are facts. You can disagree if you want, but the facts are facts.
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Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 2:12 PM By Thomas
People of many different religions are fighting over objects of metal, wood, plastic, whatever. St. Paul said not to cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God. Yet apparently some people are deadset on protecting metal/wood/plastic objects even though such behavior may cause Jews or Christians to stumble. Jesus said, "If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away." How much better it would be if one could just chop down a metal or wooden object and throw it away rather than a hand or foot. And yet it seems there are people who would rather go to hell than give up a symbol.
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Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 4:20 PM By Sgt. Aronson
JLS, veterans don't agree on religion, and veterans, including Christian veterans, have boldly fought so that people of every religion can say what they want to say. Veterans have even fought so that people can disagree over religious symbols at veterans memorials. Indeed, it is veterans themselves who are involved in these lawsuits. Call it "spit" if you want, but veterans fought for the right to spit and they'll continue to fight for it, while you yourself enjoy the right veterans fought for as you spit upon veterans and others from your easy chair.
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Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 6:33 PM By Alice in San Diego
There are no “military people buried at Mt. Soledad”. And no war memorial plaque was installed there until 1992 -- after lawsuits about the religious display on government property had started. It wasn’t until 2000 that an American flag and other decorations were added. It’s a Christian symbol that’s been dressed up in response to lawsuits to try to fly under the Constitutional radar. The original suit was filed in 1989 by a Vietnam War veteran and self-described humanist and atheist. In 2006, the Jewish War Veterans and local residents also filed suit. Likewise, no one is buried at Sunrise Rock in the Mojave Desert. A prospector and a couple of his buddies put a Christian cross there in 1934, allegedly on behalf of (some) war veterans. Requests to erect a symbol in the area for another religion were denied. The suit over that religious display on government property was filed in 2001 by “a practicing Roman Catholic” who was the retired deputy superintendent of Mojave National Preserve. It seems that there are people, including veterans and Catholics and courts, who believe that Christian-only religious displays on government property violate the First Amendment.
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Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:34 PM By JonJ
JLS, I must point out that there are no openly "gay activists or couples" who died for their country during WW2, because such people were not allowed to serve. However, there have been soldiers whom you would label "sexually deviant" who have honorably served their country. I'm hardly an expert in this area, but I have seen two fairly recent news stories about a transgender former Lt. Col. who was a fighter pilot (who served in Bosnia, Somalia and Iraq). And there was a British transgender paratrooper Captain who received multiple decorations in Gulf War I and II. Historically, the Spartans actually ENCOURAGED gay relationships among their troops because they believed that such relationships would make them less likely to break in battle. The Spartans, btw, were generally recognized as the toughest soldiers in antiquity. I learned this fun fact when I was in high school (I liked military history). During my disreputable youth, I had great fun informing an opposing wide receiver about this history during a game (whose team was named "the Spartans".) He lasted about a quarter before he got kicked out for fighting. .
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Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 11:01 PM By JLS
Sgt. Aronson, my chair is not that easy. Spit all you want; it's nothing new. What Martha is up to is to force her religion of syncretism on others. I'm not buying it. There is nothing but fantasy in the belief that all religions are equal, which seems to be what you're getting at. If you want to put up a religious symbol, then do so, but don't be taking down Christian symbols. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, regardless of your opinion. If you'd like, go ahead and imagine how you'd run an army if you denied Christian soldiers to express their religion ... they way they always do which is proselytizing. You can dump all you want on Christian military, but they are not robots and will indeed remind you of Who is in charge. Again, what you're insinuating is that the reason veterans have fought in wars is so that all religions can be the same ... but that is not true.
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Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 11:02 PM By JLS
Thomas, your interpretation of Gospel is ridiculous.
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Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 11:14 PM By JLS
Alice in San Diego, your argument does not hold water: Christians are not the ones wrongly tearing down the religious symbols of others. It is others who tear down our symbols. The alleged Catholic who acted to tear down the Mojave Cross is just that, alleged. Or maybe he felt that the bare Cross is a Protestant symbol and wanted it gone for that reason. But Christianity is not going to go away; you slap our faces and we turn cheeks for a time, but not forever. Of the religious traditions that founded and preserved this land, the only one is Judeo-Christianity. The entire concept of western government, often called democracy, stems from Christianity, some of which crucial seeds preceded it in Judaism, which is where the Greeks and Romans caught wind of it. It is a Judeo-Christian tradition which gave and is giving rise to western democracy; it is foolish to remove the symbols of it. There is no other government tradtion coming from anywhere else in the world which has co-founded western civilization. You can argue that natural law has a part, but Christianity has always included that, so it is not something new from some other source. Nope, we owe our civilization and government to the Church, without which the west would not exist.
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Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 11:38 PM By JLS
JonJ, the Hitler regime was also powered at the top with a large contingent of homosexuals ... obviously they loved to fight. I'm not convinced they loved to win, however. The Spartans faded away. The LTC you refer to is not a transgender according to the article I read, but "simply" a homosexual. As for decorations for wartime service, most of them are likely warranted ... but then some of them are purple hearts for bandaid scratches which we all discovered with the swift boating of John Kerry. Your school experience must be recent ... the best atheletes in my family were also street fighters in the evenings; one was privileged to pitch to Joe Dimagio in Hawaii. When I was in grammar school, fights happened all the time on the playground; the teachers broke them up and that was that, no paper trail, no big deals. Lawyers love the way they've been able to tweek society today, so that no matter what they have something to collect payment for. I had a tendency to tease others also, but my Dad corrected that early on, as it was something that my sisters were allowed to perfect. I got into one fight in basic training, and the guy was bigger than I ... it was a draw; we each had a crowd behind us ... I have to admit though that no punch was thrown, as we both realized that there were better things to do to get the day going. Besides, the sergeant was on his way, and we really did not want to be the cause of 240 others doing extra pt. I'd rather be in a foxhole with a guy who liked to fight, or at least didn't have any other backup plan, than with a guy who yielded to every whim of a playground director. I'm amazed at how tough my drill instructors were at USMCRD in 65-66. Lot of their recruits were there because the judge told them their other choice would be jail. What would you do if you were standing in line face forward and w/o warning suddenly you got whapped on the knot on the back of your head, along with a shrill voice screaming sweet nothings?
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Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 11:44 PM By JLS
Soldiers usually fight so that they don't get killed or maimed or captured, and to protect their families and neighbors. I don't know of any soldiers who would give up a paycheck to fight so that others could say and do whatever they wanted or believe whatever they wanted. Millions of soldiers believed in Hitler and his state religion; I don't believe that the Allies fought to allow the Nazis to keep on believing that. Lots believed in Communism and none of the Korean War veterans I knew fought to help them maintain those beliefs. Sgt Aronson, do you want the Hammer and Sickle decorating the United States?
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Posted Friday, June 12, 2009 9:25 AM By Alice in San Diego
JLS, you're only arguing with yourself. I posted no argument pro or con. I stated historical facts which are mutually agreed upon by the parties to the cases. The "alleged Catholic" as you called him filed suit because he said he believes it's wrong for the government to exclude other religions from public property. It has nothing to do with the fanciful stories you've got going on in your head. He's not opposed to the cross itself. He doesn't have an "anti-cross agenda". He's opposed to the government's wrongdoing, i.e. the government's prohibition against other religions. You said it yourself, "the prohibition is unconstitutional." So get a grip and stop arguing with yourself.
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Posted Friday, June 12, 2009 10:03 AM By Betty
JLS, without freedom of speech, people would be killed, maimed or imprisoned for speaking out. The recent imprisonment of journalists in North Korea is a reminder. So yes, soldiers fight everyday for the freedom to speak, even if you don't appreciate that they are in fact doing that. Without the freedom to speak, society would fall, universities shut down, churches locked, communication silenced. It's precisely because we treasure our freedoms, including the freedom of speech, that we protect the USA and other countries.
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Posted Friday, June 12, 2009 9:20 PM By JLS
Alice, what does being a Catholic then have to do with believing he ought to have the cross pulled down? Is he in effect saying that he puts more faith in government than in God or the Church? As for my "stories" as you call them, if you do not have much understanding of stories that's your dilemma. But there are many who understand stories on many levels. Jesus teaches us that even little children understand many things that jaded adults do not; and He also teaches us that if we want to understand then we are to be "as little children" in this respect of learning ... now don't go off and think I'm saying to act childish, because that's not it at all. In order to learn and understand, Alice, especially the profound things of God, you have to open your mind as a child's is open. Ain't no other way. Risky? Yes, of course; but with Christ all things are possible, even learning and understanding. The prohibition against the Christian symbols is unconstitutional, Alice: BTW, why do other religions not put up their symbols? All they clamor for is to take down the Christian symbols. Have you ever considered that, Alice?
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Posted Friday, June 12, 2009 9:28 PM By JLS
Betty, that is nonsense. The Church does not kill people for speaking the truth. Your blending of all religion with Christianity is simply a religion, and one that oppresses and would suppress God's Church. Universities were brought to us by the Church, not by your Enlightenment pantheism, which have been destroying the universities for two centuries ... just look at how the formerly Catholic universities in this nation have been all but rendered pagan and abortion promoting institutions. There is no way you can shut God up ... North Korea may be trying but there are still Christians there. Jesus says to go everywhere and preach and disciple the nations ... and He did not say that it would be easy. Two millenia later it is still a real rough road to take. But if you shut down by letting the world know that you do not care whether they worship Christ of a rock, then how can you be helping God or His Church?
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Posted Saturday, June 13, 2009 12:54 PM By Alice from San Diego
JLS, there is no "prohibition against Christian symbols", and the Catholic man who is suing doesn't seek to prohibit Christian symbols. Those are just your fanciful stories. As I said, as he said, the cross poses no offense to him. Rather, he believes the First Amendment has been violated and that is the wrong he, as a Catholic and citizen, seeks to be redressed, and he's suing on those grounds. Such redress does not per se demand the removal of the cross. It can also including allowing the cross and/or allowing it with other symbols. What's more, perhaps it's perfectly fine under the First Amendment that the cross remain to the exclusion of other symbols, but that's simply not his understanding of the First Amendment and he has sought the court to more clearly define what the First Amendment says. Indeed, that is why the matter is before the Supreme Court, because there is contention by multiple parties, including the government itself, over what the First Amendment says and how it has been interpreted. If your fanciful stories keep you from God as much as your self-exaltation does, I pray that you give them up.
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Posted Saturday, June 13, 2009 3:40 PM By Betty
JLS, pantheism? Church killing people? Those are your wild ideas. I said nothing of the sort. In the words of the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, "Recognizing the importance of a free exchange of ideas and information, the Church supports freedom of speech and of the press." In the words of St. Paul, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Cor 3:17). If you confuse that with "do not care whether they worship Christ of a rock," that's your confusion, not mine. "Go everywhere and preach" is not a call to limit man's freedom, for the Gospel in no way detracts from man's freedom. The Second Vatican Council states: "The human person has a right to religious freedom.... All should have such immunity from coercion by individuals, or by groups, or by any human power, that no one should be forced to act against his conscience in religious matters, nor prevented from acting according to his conscience, whether in private or in public, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits." And, "the Church addresses people with full respect for their freedom. Her mission does not restrict freedom but rather promotes it." Again, the Church supports and promotes freedom of speech and the right to religious freedom. If you don't, that's your problem. The truth will set you free.
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Posted Sunday, June 14, 2009 1:56 PM By Anne T.
I was writing about the large Soledad cross previously, and I am sorry I did not make that clear. Also, the above article can be confusing if one did not read over it carefully. Many who want the cross in the Mojave Desert as a memorial to Christian veterans (it was declared so by the U.S. Govenment previously according to some secular newspaper articles)have offered to make a land swap by making the place where the cross is private property and giving some private property to the government in exchange.), but the ACLU and some others are not satistied with that.
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Posted Sunday, June 14, 2009 3:29 PM By Todd
Anne T, it's not the ACLU that's not satisfied. The ACLU has been satisfied with every single court decision in the case. Instead, it was the Bush administration who was not satisfied and continued to appeal. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals have repeatedly and consistently ruled against the Bush administration's requests. The courts ruled that the display of the cross in conjunction with the denial of other religious symbols was an "impermissible governmental endorsement of religion." The courts ruled that the land exchange was a "sham" and an "... attempt by the government to evade the permanent injunction." The courts ruled that "carving out a tiny parcel of property in the midst of this vast Preserve -- like a donut hole with the cross atop of it -- will do nothing to minimize the impermissible government endorsement." The Bush administration was not satisfied, and that's why the case now sits before the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Posted Sunday, June 14, 2009 5:11 PM By Anne T.
Todd, there are such crosses all over this land. Near Sonoma, or somewhere up in Northern California, I remember a cross on a hill near the road. It was put there over a Romeo and Juliet type of situation -- two young people from two different native American Indian tribes who committed suicide because their families would not allow them to marry. So the cross is not always just a Christian symbol, but has been also used as a symbol for a tragic death. I saw it as a child, and do not know if it is still there, or whehter it was on public or private land. Also, many parks, etc. which are named after Saints and later became public land have statues, etc. honoring those Saints. What do people like you want to do. Take away all past Californian and American history? It sure sounds like such.
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Posted Sunday, June 14, 2009 5:40 PM By Anne T.
Also, Todd, recently in California the ACLU and others wanted to take off a small cross on the seal of one of our cities while leaving on a pagan symbol. Go figure! I wish some would not come here, if they don't like our history, or the names of our towns. The man who is suing over this cross put up by the Veterans from what I have heard is not even a Californian.
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Posted Sunday, June 14, 2009 5:42 PM By JLS
What the ACLU is not satisfied with is the Church. Bush administrators were not too satisfied with the Church either. The result of dissatisfaction with the Church is the pending removal of Christian symbols from the land. God is dissatisfied with those who try to usurp His glory. This is the issue.
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Posted Sunday, June 14, 2009 6:32 PM By Anne T.
There are also pagan symbols (on seals, etc.) and names on cities all over this country. Should Christians and others have them taken off and torn down? I have been to Hawaii, and I am sure they have state or federally supported monuments and sites of the native religions. I do not go there and tell them what to do, so I hope people from other states who come here to California show us the same respect. And don't give me the "they are only historical" garbage either because some people still practice some of those religions in the United States.
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Posted Sunday, June 14, 2009 7:12 PM By Jill
What's "pagan"? Anything that's not Christian? Whatever it is, Christian, pagan, Jewish or whatever, if it violates the First Amendment, it violates the First Amendment. Sue away to your heart's (dis)content if it bothers you. You won't be the first or the last if you do.
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Posted Sunday, June 14, 2009 8:17 PM By Jon
ALL of you are undoubtedly aware of citizens within America who are telling us that America is a Christian nation based upon Christian principles. Their argument is totally false. The Constitution is based upon a principle which says that what is in writing is the supreme law of the land, means what it says, and says what it means. That is what a written contract or compact or agreement is all about. If we accept the false proposition that the Constitution means things it does not say or are not written down, what kind of document is that? It might as well be a blank piece of paper onto which every person writes whatever he or she chooses. No, it is not a blank piece of paper!
The sum and substance of the Constitution is that what is written is acceptable, not what is not written. If the Founding Fathers had wanted a founding document which meant something other than what they wrote, they would have written it differently and said what they meant. The Founding Fathers were not dumb. They wrote what they meant, and what they wrote expresses exactly which principles they accepted and which, by their absence, they rejected. The "Christian nation" proposition is obviously not a part of the Constitution for the United States of America. If the Founding Fathers had wanted such a proposition in the Constitution, they would have written it into the document.
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Posted Sunday, June 14, 2009 9:29 PM By JLS
Isaiah the Prophet engaged the Molochites in a symbol contest. He won. Now why would God tell us this? Why would God tell us in repeated stories in Scripture and later of these contests where those who raised God's standard higher than those of God's enemies won? Isn't it to encourage us to raise Jesus Christ up higher than all competitors? Here is something to consider: If Christian symbols disappear, then whose symbols do people expect to become the most prominent? There is only one other worldwide religious symbol that is gaining ground, and it is the crescent with star. The Church is obligated to follow with Our Lady who crushes the head of the serpent, which is represented by a crescent in Her apparition of Guadalupe. Anyone who naiively dreams that pulling crosses down is being fair or helping keep us free is delusional.
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 9:30 AM By JLS
Jill for President in 012!
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 9:32 AM By JLS
Jon, how can you be so naiive as to believe that a piece of paper can either or both enforce and interpret itself?
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 9:37 AM By Anne T.
Oh! Really! Jon. The Constitution is signed "in the year of Our Lord" (meaning Christ), NOT in the year of Brahma or Allah or Buddha or any other god. Everyone has the right to practice their religion when they come here, but they don't have the right to take away our history. They did not fight to end slavery in the Civil War, my ancestors did. Brother fought brother to end slavery. The blood of those who came after did not flow into those grounds. The Battle Hymn of the Republic is a CHRISTIAN hymn, no ifs, ands or buts about it. It was Christians who ended slavery, here and in England. The Musllims still practice slavery in some of their countries.
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 9:50 AM By Anne T.
JLS, you are right. They are delusional.
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 11:42 AM By Anne T.
The point of my last posts is that the Constitution had a Judeo-Christian foundation from the beginning and anyone who says otherwise is just fooling themselves.
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 1:30 PM By JLS
Jon, the society who made the United States was part of western civilization, which was created by the Church. Yes, a significant portion of the framers of the U.S. were masons and Enlightenment atheists or deists, and they influenced the Christian civilization. And there were obvious compromises among the religious factions in framing the Constitution. But even England who separated from the Church did not do so all at once, even after butchering or converting all ... all ... the clergy over to allegiance to the temporal ruler. The Christian influence in western society is still a potent social force ... otherwise not only would we see Obama telling the world that the U.S. is the largest Muslim nation, but we'd be seeing hands and heads flying at every protest. Islam has not yet won over the west to the point it can rule as it wants; no, that day has almost come several times in history, but each time the rally by the faithful of Christ has pushed them back. Any beliefs not Catholic will be subsumed by Islam ... whether you agree or not.
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 2:22 PM By Sam Adelstein
Anne, which Lord is that? Lord Shiva? Lord Brahma? Lord Krishna? Lord Vishnu? Lord of the Underworld? Lord Byron? Lord of the Dance? Lord Almighty? Even Jews use the word "Lord". It can have different meanings depending on the context of use. The phrase "in the year of our Lord" was a common way of expressing the date, in both religious and secular contexts. If your Lord is Jesus Christ, then that's what it means to you, but not to everyone else. For all anyone knows, the signers of the Constitution are all in hell. Maybe they choose the devil as their "Lord". You don't know. A month before he died, Ben Franklin, deist, signatory, said of Jesus, "I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity."
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 3:39 PM By A
Sam Adelstein, the Lord was and is the Lord Jesus Christ that the signers were mentioning. They were using the Christian calendar. At least 55 of the signers of the Constitution were not Deists, but more orthodox Christians. That does not mean that you have to worship Jesus Christ, but don't deny reality. By the way since we are taking off religious symbols, shall we take the Star of David off the one dollar bill which is on the seal of the United States? After all that came later--after the signing of the Constitution.
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 4:00 PM By Anne T.
Sam Adelstein, it might have been a common usage to some, but to the majority it meant more than that--if they were true to their denominations, and about fifty-five of them came from more orthodox Christian denominations at that time. Also, the Founding Fathers used texts from the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. I don't know about you or some of the other women who have posted here, but I do not admire nor will I be ruled by any religion whose founder married a girl named Aisha when she was only nine years old and consummated that marriage when she was nine, nor one that practices polygamy. As for me I will take the Lord Jesus Christ any day over all the other gods and goddesses. I know what side of the fence I am on, some do not. As for me, give me liberty or give me death. Liberty from polygamy, liberty from genital mutilation (as happens in some Muslim countries), liberty from libertines, etc.
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 4:44 PM By JLS
There is one Lord of Lords; He hovered over the waters and then there was life; He spoke to Moses in the burning bush; He also was crucified at Calvary. Yes, Sam, there are other lords, but they are not divine.
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 6:26 PM By Jon
The general calendar used in 1787 in Britain and America was introduced in 1582 by Roman Catholic Pope Gregory XIII. It was common for the phrase "in the year of our Lord" to be used in dating all kinds of religious and secular or legal documents. For instance, the formal probate statement which in 1809 validated the last will of Thomas Paine uses the same terminology as used in dating the Constitution. The words "in the year of our Lord" were merely commonplace terminology used in the dating of documents. In 1787 and 1809 the phrase was a commonly worded affirmation of a date according to the Christian calendar--a historical hangover from the past when church and state were united and Christianity was established and imposed by law. It was precisely that kind of past relationship which the Founding Fathers and the majority of Americans rejected when they adopted the Constitution and the First Amendment. Nevertheless, the Gregorian calendar determines the year (A.D. or B.C) in relation to the birth of Jesus; therefore, use of "Lord" obviously and specifically refers to Jesus, not God. Today we normally use simply the date of the year itself (2009). Both ways utilize the Christian calendar; but, use of the Christian calendar date is not a profession of faith today anymore than it was in 1787 because Americans are free to believe whatever they choose in regard to religion.
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 7:14 PM By Sam Edelstein
Anne, maybe it comforts you to believe such things, but you can only suppose what it meant to them. Whether the signers used the word "Lord", or were called Protestant or Catholic or atheists, or quoted from a Bible (even the devil can quote scripture they say), or used a so-called "Christian calendar" (as if a calendar is "Christian" -- calenders have no beliefs), it does not prove that even a one of the Founding Fathers was truly a follower of Jesus or shared your beliefs. For all you know, the majority of the Founding Fathers were actually devil worshippers and for them, their "Lord", their master, was the devil. "Lord" may be Jesus Christ to you, but what was it to the Founding Fathers? Books, documents, stories and opinions can have them saying many things and not saying many things, but the Judge does not rely on history books or whether someone said "Lord". Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven."
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 10:09 PM By Diana
The "year of our Lord" calendar system actually does not refer to Jesus. Historically, what happened was someone let the year C.E. 1 start one week after what he erroneously believed to be Jesus’ birthday. However, in reality, it's likely that Jesus was actually born around 4-7 B.C.E. Therefore, the "year of our Lord" does not refer to the real Jesus, but to a sham Jesus, a fictional Lord.
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Posted Monday, June 15, 2009 10:35 PM By JLS
Jon, have you ever invested your imagination in a civilization that has never had any significant Christian influence? Compare that to the west, and you would be able to see what I'm referring to. To deconstruct the west from its Christian nature is not going to happen in your lifetime. Even though it may seem that the west is already removed from a Christian state, it has a vastly long way to go before all vestiges of Christian culture have disappeared ... not likely to happen though, but hypothetically at the rate it's been slouching towards Gomorrah, it would still take centuries at least.
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Posted Tuesday, June 16, 2009 9:28 AM By Anne T.
They could have just put the date, but chose not to do so. One of the signers Daniel Carroll was a Catholic. It is interesting how some of you say that the phrase "in the name of the Lord" is only common usage, then turn right around and say a cross on public land is always a religious symbol. Quite ingenious of you!
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Posted Tuesday, June 16, 2009 10:41 AM By Jon
The principle respecting religion upon which this country is founded is religious autonomy -- the right of every man and every woman to make up his or her own mind as to what he or she chooses to believe and support respecting religion. Religion is a matter of individual opinion and, as such, is not within the jurisdiction of government. Therefore, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; and, no religious test shall ever be required for any office or public trust under the United States. The Founding Fathers and the Congressmen who worded the Constitution and the First Amendment clearly established a principle of separation between religion and government.
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Posted Tuesday, June 16, 2009 10:42 AM By Jon
America's real religion is democracy (its foremost export to the rest of the world) -- "the social and political expression of the religious principle that all men are brothers and mankind a family" (A. Powell Davies).
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Posted Tuesday, June 16, 2009 11:01 AM By JLS
Diana, your argument neither holds water nor addresses the issue. "A day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day". Scripture is filled with phrases such as "the day of the Lord": It is not a scientific nor political concept, but a religious notion. It serves to remind us all that we are created beings, created by the Lord, and that time is His and not ours. We are subject to time, which the Lord created. The day, any and all days, is the Lord's.
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Posted Tuesday, June 16, 2009 3:07 PM By Richard D.
Sam, you said it best, "Lord" has different meanings depending on context of use. Whether the phrase is "in the day of our Lord" or "a day with the Lord" or whatever. For some, it may mean Jesus, for others it might not. As the Church teaches: "The human person has a right to religious freedom... All should have such immunity from coercion by individuals, or by groups, or by any human power." Only the spiritually weak will try to coerce others to believe it means Jesus.
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Posted Tuesday, June 16, 2009 5:36 PM By Jim Swenson
Anne T, if it was custom to say "in the year of our Lord," then they could not "just put the date" without violating custom, just as someone could not just slam the door in a woman's face without appearing rude to the watching crowd, even if the person frankly doesn't care if the door hits the woman in the nose. As such, "in the year of the Lord" is not necessarily an homage to Jesus or Lord of the Dance or any other "Lord" so much as it may be an homage to custom and the crowd. This is an example of why Jesus said not to judge by appearances, for "'these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me," and why St. Paul said, "For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people." The courts examine the context, the situation and behavior and do not judge that a cross on public land is always illegal or nothing more than a religious symbol, just like the words "in the year of our Lord" are not always illegal or spoken with intention to honor Jesus. Even if a cross is in fact a religious symbol, the courts do not automatically rule that it violates the First Amendment. The First Amendment has no problem with religious symbols per se. There are, for example, religious symbols in the Supreme Court building itself. However, in the particular cases of Mt. Soledad and Sunrise Rock, the courts have examined the context, situation and behavior by the government in regard to these particular crosses and to date have consistently ruled that the situation of these crosses, i.e. the government's behavior with respect to these particular crosses, is an illegal governmental endorsement. In other cases, crosses are permissible because the situation, the context, the government's behavior is different.
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Posted Tuesday, June 16, 2009 8:38 PM By JLS
The government should bow its knee before every cross it sees.
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Posted Tuesday, June 16, 2009 8:41 PM By Anne T.
As I understand it the crosses were put there merely to honor the dead men, so many years ago that I don't understand the fuss about it anymore than I would understand a fuss about having a Star of David on the Great Seal of the United States and the dollar bill or the carving of Moses on the Supreme Court. It makes no sense to me that there is a fuss over one and not the other. They are all religious symbols, including the picture of the goddess Pomona on the city of Pomona. It does not seem fair that others can her there symbols, but the Christian ones are taken down.
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Posted Tuesday, June 16, 2009 8:43 PM By Anne T.
A correcton: it should be "their" and "Christian" in my last post.
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Posted Wednesday, June 17, 2009 4:08 PM By Jim Swenson
Anne T, Moses does appear in designs on the Supreme Court building. And so does Confucius, Solon, Menes, Hammurabi, Solomon, Lycurgus, Draco, Justinian, Mohammed, Charlemagne, King John, Louis IX, Hugo Grotius, Sir William Blackstone, John Marshall and Napoleon. They are presented as “great lawgivers of history”, from many civilizations, used to depict the development of secular law. As such, it is not an “establishment of religion” by the government. If it were only Moses, or if only a Latin cross were allowed, and all the others were denied, then that might cast a different message. In that sense, you question why a “picture of the goddess Pomona” would be acceptable but a Latin cross would not be. A similar question might be raised about why a 151 ft. statue of the goddess Libertas (Statue of Liberty) is allowed but not a Latin cross. The answer is because neither a picture of the goddess Pomona nor a statue of the goddess Libertas is viewed today as exclusively representational of any particular modern religion, and as such is not perceived as governmental establishment of religion. Instead, a picture of Pomona is viewed as symbolic of a bountiful agricultural harvest and a statue of Libertas is symbolic of liberty, without the perception that the government is trying to establish Roman goddess worship as the religion of the people. To compare, a Latin cross is seen today as exclusively representational of the modern Christian religion, and when the government appears to favor a Latin cross, particularly when most members of government claim to be Christian themselves, it’s often perceived, and not unreasonably so, as governmental establishment of religion. The story that "crosses were put there merely to honor the dead", and more to the point that crosses to the exclusion of other religious symbols must remain in a location where no one died or is buried, is not a reasonable belief.
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Posted Wednesday, June 17, 2009 4:18 PM By Jim Swenson
Anne T, in regard to the alleged Star of David in the Great Seal, the configuration of the 13 (5-pointed) stars, depending on how one visualizes them, can appear similar to a Star of David, or to a symbol used by Christians, or to a multitude of other religious and occult symbols, or simply be a stylish and simple representation for the 13 original American colonies arranged in rows of 1-4-3-4-1. There are many possible interpretations. A traditional Star of David can be produced by intertwining two equilateral triangles, and as such, there are 12 (not 13) notable points: the six outer points plus the six points of intersection. It's a configuration common in the Middle East and North Africa, and is commonly thought to bring good luck. It appears occasionally in early Jewish artwork, but never as an exclusively Jewish symbol. 12 points also coincides with the 12 tribes of Israel, but 13 points does not. Such interlocking triangles or the outer hexagram are also a Hindu symbol for their divine “Trinity” – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and also appears in Buddhist and Jainist history. The six outer points can be viewed as a hexagram, a symbol long used in magic, witchcraft, sorcery and occultism and zodiacal horoscopes by astrologers. The hexagram is also found in Christian churches, such as the one embedded in the ceiling of the Washington National Cathedral. It also appears within and on the outside of many Masonic temples as a decoration. There is no requirement that the 13 stars be seen as a Star of David, and to most people, it does not.
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Posted Wednesday, June 17, 2009 7:40 PM By Anne T.
That is nonsense, Jim Swenson, and you know it. The cross was put up years ago by Christian soldiers to honor mostly Christian soldiers, or others who did not object to the symbol at that time. The Star of David on the Seal is exactly that -- a Star of David, or as you say to honor occult religions. There are many who still worship the goddes Pomona, just put "wicca" or the goddess Pomona in your search engine and you will find many websites that will back that up. If we get rid of the Latin cross, which by the way was also used by other religions in the past, then let's get rid of them all (religous symbols).
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Posted Wednesday, June 17, 2009 8:40 PM By Bob
The symbol on the great seal is most often attributed to the masonic order. Annuit Coeptis, "He favors our endeavors" comes from the Aenius (sic), I think written by Virgil. Then there are all the myths about the seal. Let's remember that many of the founding fathers were Deist and Masons. That was their religion. Many of them use the same words as would be used in Christian circles, but had different meanings for them. A good example would be the Bible written by Thomas Jefferson, which erased most of the references to the trinity and many references to the works Christ performed while on earth. Don't forget that most Catholics were relegated to Maryland in the early days of our country, and were not allowed to live in some of the other states. Most of them were ruled by Diest and Masons.
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Posted Wednesday, June 17, 2009 8:57 PM By JLS
The star pattern I prefer is found on Bl Juan Diego's Tilma in the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. The star pattern on it is the same as the night sky at the time of the Tilma event.
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Posted Thursday, June 18, 2009 5:55 AM By Jim Swenson
Anne T, Los Angeles County did remove religious symbols from their seal. They removed the goddess Pomona and they removed the cross. Goddess Pomona was replaced with a Native American woman, and the cross was replaced with a Taco Bell-like building (a supposedly historical rather than exclusively religious reference to “Mission San Gabriel, the first in Los Angeles County”). However, the government has not responded in like manner with respect to the crosses in the cases described in the article but has instead gone to extreme measures in an attempt to maintain the crosses and moreover, has done so to the exclusion of other religious symbols. The First Amendment does not permit the government to exclusively honor only Christian veterans or to give greater honor to some because they're Christian. If some private parties years ago claimed to be Christian and chose to honor only Christian veterans, that does not authorize the government to behave likewise.
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Posted Thursday, June 18, 2009 7:26 AM By Anne T.
I would add to my last post, if you insist on taking off all religious symbols which would have to happen if you take down the Latin cross, then you could not use names such as Carl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Madilyn Murray O'Hare, Chi Gavera, etc. because those are the gods and goddesses of the atheist religion, so that does not leave you with much of anything. Now does it? Oh, and by all means take off the name Mt. Diablo from that mountain because that is really offensive to me and many others.
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Posted Thursday, June 18, 2009 8:29 AM By Anne T.
By the way, neither do I worship the goddess Liberty. For some it has become an idol -- a symbol for licentiousness (anything goes) -- not liberty in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word, freedom from slavery to sin.
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Posted Thursday, June 18, 2009 10:33 AM By Anne T.
I would prefer the star pattern on Blessed Juan Diego's tilma, too, JLS, but if they let us keep the cross, I don't mind the Star of David on the Great Seal.
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Posted Thursday, June 18, 2009 2:59 PM By Bill
Someone said: "O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity -- greedy, dishonest, adulterous -- or even like this tax collector." But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, 'O God, be merciful to me a sinner.' Jesus said, "I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted."
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Posted Thursday, June 18, 2009 5:13 PM By Anne T.
Bill, I and most everyone on here realize we are sinful at times. I try to go to confession at least once a month, but what angers me is that they are always going after the Christian symbols. There was absolutely no reason for anyone to take off the small cross on the Seal of Pomona.
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Posted Thursday, June 18, 2009 6:32 PM By Jenny
Anne, there's a reason for everything, even if we don't know what it is or don't agree with it. According to the news, county supervisors were "asked" to remove the cross, and they did. After they removed it, cross proponents filed at least three lawsuits to try to force the county to add the cross back in, all of which failed. Is that what you mean by "going after the Christian symbols"? Jennifer Lehman, an attorney with the county said, "I think that the law was pretty clear to begin with. Governments are to be neutral when it comes to religion." Don't forget, the ACLU also goes after non-Christian religious symbols too. For example, the ACLU has also gone after Jewish-only holiday displays. If it seems like the ACLU goes after more Christian religious symbols than others, that shouldn't be too surprising since there are so many more Christians than others.
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Posted Thursday, June 18, 2009 10:36 PM By JLS
Jenny, did you appear as a character in the novel, "Animal Farm"? Your pitch sounds like it. "Neutral"? Do you decide what that is, or does the ACLU, or legislators who found some way to pass a law when the voters were not looking? " ... more Christians than others" is an interesting statement, Jenny; I wonder how that came about, and also why it is changing. You pitch the law pretty much as if it existed before society came into being ... Where did this law come from, the ones the legislators made up before society began? And which are neutral, and perfect?
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Posted Friday, June 19, 2009 2:42 PM By Jenny
JLS, you appear concerned about decisions and "why". Many people ask "why" seeking a story. These little boxes aren't much for telling a big story, but for a plot synopsis, the First Amendment was ratified as part of the Bill of Rights in 1791; in 1887, the original seal for the County of Los Angeles only had grapes and some words; in 1957, a cross and goddess of Pomona were added to the seal; in 2004, the ACLU decided to "ask" about the seal in connection with the First Amendment; the county supervisors responded by deciding to change the seal to remove the cross and goddess of Pomona; cross proponents decided to sue, bringing at least three lawsuits against the county; all the lawsuits failed with the courts deciding in favor of the county; the U.S. Supreme court decided in 2007 that it was not interested in the case and let the lower court rulings stand.
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Posted Friday, June 19, 2009 4:50 PM By Anne T.
Jenny, a Star of David on the Great Seal and the one dollar bill is not being neutral.
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Posted Friday, June 19, 2009 8:25 PM By Jenny
Anne, I checked a dozen dollar bills, and not one of them has a Star of David. I also checked the Great Seal, and there's no Star of David there either. For an experiment, I then closed my eyes and looked through a cloud of make believe, and then I saw your Star of David.
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Posted Saturday, June 20, 2009 11:10 PM By Anne T.
It is on the back of the one dollar bill on the Great Seal in the cloud over the eagle.
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Posted Saturday, June 20, 2009 11:40 PM By Anne T.
Jenny, if you and others do not believe me, just put "the Star of David on the Great Seal of the U.S." in your search engine. One of the sites called "The Great Seal" says this: "The arrangement of the stars in the constellation to form overlapping equilateral triangles and the Star of David calls to the Mason's mind King David's dream of building a Temple to his God...."
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Posted Saturday, June 20, 2009 11:58 PM By Anne T.
Also, as a poster before has said, "The all-seeing eye in the triangle over the pyramid is often used by Christians as a symbol for the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
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Posted Sunday, June 21, 2009 12:26 AM By Anne T.
One Jewish website says that some claim the star appears, supposedly in gratitute for the financial contribution of Haym Solomon to the American Revolution and the American War of Independence.
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Posted Sunday, June 21, 2009 2:31 PM By Jenny
Anne, if you put "star constellations" into your search engine, you'll find all sorts of websites with stories about star patterns in the shape of fish, scorpions, dippers, lions, horses, dragons, birds, people, etc. You can also use your search engine to find people who believe there are owls, spiders, Satan, etc. on the dollar bill. But websites do not prove that there's a Star of David on the dollar bill or Great Seal any more than websites prove that there's a fish in outerspace. Instead, they report what people imagine.
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Posted Thursday, June 25, 2009 3:53 PM By Anne T.
Maybe you do not exist either, Jenny, maybe you are just a figment of our imagination.
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Posted Thursday, June 25, 2009 6:00 PM By JLS
It's there in plain site, in motif form. I wonder if Jenny thinks that the designers of money waste their time making symbols and designs which have no interpretive meaning. One would think that kindergarten kids do that, but even so those designs are not random and reflect tangible things. It is the way we learn to communicate. Jenny, why don't you try to interpret the symbols?
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Posted Thursday, June 25, 2009 10:18 PM By Anne T.
Jenny, I apologize for the sarcasm of my last remark. I was trying to make the point that the websites to which I referred were not any of the conspiracy websites. One was an actual Masonic website and the other a Jewish one, and since a few or some of the people involved in the founding of this country belonged to the Masons, and some were Jewish or Deists, that is the most common interpretation of these symbols.
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Posted Friday, June 26, 2009 8:40 PM By Jon
Remarks and Explanation – June 20, 1782
* The shield is composed of thirteen stripes that represent the several states joined into one solid compact, supporting the chief which unites the whole and represents Congress. The stripes are kept closely united by the chief and the chief depends upon that union and the strength resulting from it.
* The motto E Pluribus Unum alludes to this union.
* The shield is born on the breast of an American Eagle without any other supporters to denote that the United States of America ought to rely on their own virtue.
* The olive branch and arrows denote the power of peace and war which is exclusively vested in Congress.
* The constellation of thirteen stars denotes a new state taking its place and rank among other sovereign powers.
* The pyramid signifies strength and duration.
* The Eye over it and the motto Annuit Coeptis allude to the many signal interpositions of providence in favor of the American cause.
* The date 1776 underneath is that of the Declaration of Independence and the words Novus Ordo Seclorum under it signify the beginning of the new American Era, which commences from that date.
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Posted Thursday, July 23, 2009 8:57 PM By Phyllis Rohrer
The ACLU seems to have gotten too big for it's collective britches. They tend to go full bore on cases that I consider very UN-AMERICAN. Someone should take them to task and if nothing else, not let them get so d- - - sue happy. They keep asking me for money to support their idiotic cases. I tell them exactly what I think of the ACLU. It isn't very nice anymore.
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Posted Wednesday, September 09, 2009 5:58 PM By Dave
If this lunacy continues and these people,or monsters get their way in having God removed from our money,crosses that our protect our sons,fathers,and daughters,who have paid the ultimate price in protecting this country,then I have only one thing to say,It's going to get bloody! Heaven help us!
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