Washington D.C., Jun 3, 2009 / 01:38 am
The U.S. government has defended the constitutionality of the 75-year-old Mojave Desert Cross which memorializes World War I veterans.
Submitting a brief in the Supreme Court case Salazar v. Buono, the government argued that the case should be dismissed because the plaintiff has not been personally injured or denied any rights by the presence of the cross but only claims to be offended by it, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty says.
Glen M. Gardner, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. and its Auxiliaries (VFW), said in a column at the VFW web site that the seven-foot-tall white cross mounted on Sunrise Rock is currently covered with a plywood box according to a lower court order.
A district court initially ruled that the cross had to be removed. Congress then enacted legislation ordering the Department of the Interior to transfer an acre of land, including the cross, to the VFW in exchange for a parcel of equal value elsewhere in the federal preserve where it is located.