Our
View: Battle hurting memorial, not religion
San Diego’s Mount Soledad is one of the city’s best vistas. It rests
atop a hill with serene views of the county mountains to the east as well as
a scenic sight of the seaside city of La Jolla and the Pacific Ocean to the west.
The city of San Diego owns the land and maintains it so locals and tourists alike
can enjoy the area. Even airplanes coming from the north use Soledad to start
the downwind leg of their approach to the San Diego International Airport.
There’s just one problem: a top of this majestic mountain there is a 29-foot
cross.
The cross, known worldwide as a symbol of Christianity, has bothered at least
one atheist named Philip Paulson enough to incite more than a decade of litigation,
public debates and public votes. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, “Paulson
has challenged the location of the cross since 1989, contending it is a violation
of the doctrine calling for the separation of church and state.”
Unfortunately, Paulson finally got his wish. The Union-Tribune reported last
week a federal judge “ordered the removal of the Mount Soledad cross from
property owned by the city of San Diego within 90 days — threatening to
fine the city $5,000 a day if it fails to comply.”
This recent example is not just a San Diego or Southern California issue. It’s
a national issue concerning a taboo topic: the separation of church and state.
We as a people have simply proven once again in this day and age there’s
a religion-phobia hurting us from within. Some people want to abolish anything
and everything Christian, even though that particular religion is embedded in
our history and culture.
Such abolition is what is causing frivolous lawsuits nationwide, such as taking
the phrase “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance, prohibiting
displays of the Bible’s Ten Commandments in courtrooms or disallowing the
nativity scene on public land.
The United States Constitution says freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.
People today misinterpret the Constitution’s original intent, which was
to prevent the state from mandating or banning a religion. None of the aforementioned
lawsuits ban or mandate Christianity.
The seemingly ridiculous modern view of church and state from today’s groups
like the American Civil Liberties Union is no government can perform any action
or make any policy seeming to prefer one religion above another.
The cross on Mount Soledad should not be taken down just because one disheartened
atheist, basing his doubts on a misinterpretation of the Constitution, has a
clever lawyer who convinced a federal judge. In fact, the majority has spoken
on this particular issue because 76 percent of San Diego voters in 2005 voted
to give Mount Soledad to the Interior Department as a veteran’s memorial.
This voters’ decision was later deemed unconstitutional.
This brings forth another topic of the Soledad debate. Even though the cross
there is a Christian symbol, Mount Soledad was not erected back in 1954 for purposes
of religious observation but rather as Korean War memorial for its veterans and
all war veterans.
Taking it down would dishonor those who have died for the country and the thousands
buried nearby at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery on San Diego’s Point
Loma peninsula. Fort Rosecrans is comparable to Arlington National Cemetery of
the West Coast where many fallen soldiers are buried.
Stop this religion-phobia, America. Honor your veterans, California. Fight to
keep Mount Soledad, San Diego.
What is irrational about this debate is not the superiority of different sects
of religion, but the inability for people to tolerate different beliefs.
|
