A major portion of Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial is the 27-foot cross, which has been a subject of litigation and controversy for over 20 years.
Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial, the 27-foot Latin cross memorial which had been embroiled in a litigation for over 20 years, may now be safe due to a land purchase made by a private non-profit organization on Friday.
Mount Soledad Memorial Association, a non-profit organization, bought a half-acre portion of land on which the memorial stands from the U.S. Department of Defense for $1.4 million. Some say that this would protect the memorial from facing litigation that the cross violates the First Amendment, since the property no longer belongs to the government.
"We are honored to now own this property and will continue to recognize our nation's veterans with the same spirit of integrity our Association has demonstrated for the past 60 years," said Bruce Bailey, the President and CEO of the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association board of trustees. "We look forward to continuing to partner with the City of San Deigo, our country, and our military community."
The memorial was first established in 1954 to honor Korean War veterans, and was eventually expanded to honor individual veterans with curved walls and plaques.
However, litigation against the cross portion of the memorial began since the 1980s. In 2011, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared that the cross portion is unconstitutional, and a judge ordered that the cross be removed in 2013. In response, the federal government and the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association appealed. The case has been on hold since.
"We may be getting near the end [of the case], simply for legal and pragmatic reasons," Lawyer James McElroy, who filed a lawsuit against the cross in 1988 representing a Vietnam veteran, told the Los Angeles Times.
Opponents of the cross portion of the memorial say that the legal fight might not be over just yet. David Loy, legal director for San Diego's American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter, told the San Diego Union Tribune, "We need to see the document itself and understand its precise terms, then see what impact it has on the case."
Bailey argues that opponents are "going to have a very difficult time proving their case," as he told the Tribune. "Every box got checked."
