Another challenge to the Mt. Soledad cross by the ACLU.

Or….the one already won is being argued again. Of course, it involves the Ninth Circuit.

Arguing that removing the memorial would cause “real,
irreparable harm” to war heroes and their families, the Thomas More Law
Center has filed a brief opposing a legal challenge to the
constitutionality of California’s historic Mt. Soledad cross which
honors veterans of the U.S. armed forces. Over 2,100 plaques honoring
individuals or groups of veterans are displayed near the Mt. Soledad
cross, which is the centerpiece of the veterans’ memorial. Some of the
plaques display Stars of David in honor of Jewish veterans. A large
American flag flies at the memorial’s base.

This battle goes back several years, when an activist atheist
decided he was offended by looking at the cross in this venerable war
memorial that has long been a ’sacred’ site to generations of service
people .

The brief was filed on behalf of former Navy pilot and
prisoner of war Rear Admiral Jeremiah Denton (Ret.) and the families of
Marine Majors Michael D. Martino and Gerald Bloomfield, III, who were
both killed in Iraq in November 2005 when their attack helicopter was
shot down.

All three have had plaques in their honor placed under the Mt. Soledad cross.

Rear Admiral Denton, a former U.S. Senator from Alabama, came to
national prominence during a television interview arranged by his North
Vietnamese captors in 1966. Denton affirmed his support for the United
States while blinking his eyes in Morse Code, repeatedly spelling out
the message “TORTURE.”

Denton was himself tortured and was the first American military
captive to be subjected to four years of solitary confinement, the Law
Center reports. He was released from captivity in 1973.

In May 2006, Major Martino and Major Bloomfield’s unit, having
recently returned from Iraq, sponsored a plaque dedication ceremony at
the memorial to commemorate the fallen Marines’ service. According to
the Law Center, more than 300 Marines stood in line for over three
hours to meet the Marines’ families and to pay respect to their fallen
comrades.

The Law Center argued that the cross conveys “an unmistakably
American message of patriotism and self-sacrifice” and does not
“establish” Christianity as a national religion.

Thank God for Thomas More.