{"id":451,"date":"2012-05-01T11:48:55","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T15:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/?p=451"},"modified":"2020-07-28T10:22:28","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T14:22:28","slug":"2012-05-01-mojave-cross-approved-in-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/2012-05-01-mojave-cross-approved-in-settlement\/","title":{"rendered":"Mojave Cross Will Rise Again"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Cross to bear<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was something about the Mojave Desert for the Lost Generation. \u00a0Maybe it was the cool sand-crested wind, the emptiness, an unspoken communion with a greater peace. \u00a0Those disillusioned soldiers of World War I, still shellshocked, went out there to find quiet — to forget, maybe, or to remember in silence only the stars overhead could provide. \u00a0In 1934, perhaps because of these troubled men, the Veterans of Foreign Wars built a wooden cross and raised it on a quiet parcel of land there. \u00a0It was both memorial to the soldiers lost and a reminder to those still living of the enormous cost of the war. \u00a0The veterans gathered at the cross for barbecues and dances, to come together and share their burdens in the cross’s shadow. \u00a0It stood there for 67 years, rebuilt with steel at one point, becoming a defining monument for veterans everywhere — separate, in a way, from the religious connotations inherent in the cross’s image. \u00a0Henry and Wanda Sandoz looked after it, on a promise to the previous caretaker on his deathbed. \u00a0The cross remained, stoic and silent, until 2001 when a church-and-state lawsuit threatened to take it down.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The problem was that the cross was built on land that later became part of the National Public Reserve. \u00a0As any constitutional scholar will tell you, there is a major problem with government entanglement in religion, even if unintentional. \u00a0In this case, the cross was put up by a private entity 60 years before the Mojave Preserve even existed, its purpose memorial, its religion incidental. \u00a0In 1999, the National Park Service planned to take down the cross, but was forbidden to use public funds to do so by Congress. \u00a0In 2001, a former park service employee supported by the ACLU brought suit to remove the cross on church-and-state grounds. \u00a0The suit simmered for 11 years. \u00a0In 2003, Congress suggested simply giving up the land to a private party. \u00a0However, this was blocked by an appeals court. \u00a0In 2010, that appeal was overturned and now, this very Monday, the land will be ceded to the Sandozes, who will in turn give the parcel to the VFW. \u00a0Finally, the memorial will live on, unimpeded, on a small section of private land within a federal sanctuary.<\/p>\n

The separation of church and state is an important facet of American freedom. \u00a0Its purpose, of course, is to prevent the enforcement by the government of any particular religion on the people. \u00a0Government money cannot support a church, for instance, or be used to build a cross on the White House. \u00a0In fact, organizations like the ACLU rigorously defend this idea when the government gets a bit out of line — you’ll see it in the papers all the time. \u00a0But what about this incident? \u00a0The Mojave Cross was built by war-weary veterans 78 years ago for the sole purpose of memorial. \u00a0It did not preach, it had no pulpit, and wasn’t actually on government land until 1994. \u00a0No one could say with a straight face that it was irrefutable proof of government endorsement of religion. \u00a0Congress’s solution in this case, to remove government involvement by just giving the land away, was an elegant one. \u00a0It reminds us that, while separation of church and state is important, so is history and so is memory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was something about the Mojave Desert for the Lost Generation. \u00a0Maybe it was the cool sand-crested wind, the emptiness, an unspoken communion with a greater peace. \u00a0Those disillusioned soldiers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[413,16,410,409,411,412,263,415,416,414],"class_list":["post-451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-settlements","tag-413","tag-california","tag-christianity","tag-cross","tag-mojave","tag-mojave-cross","tag-religion-2","tag-veterans","tag-vfw","tag-wwi"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9661,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions\/9661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}