Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

by Julianne LaJeunesse, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

The U.S. Supreme Court justices will decide on the legitimacy of a now-covered cross in the Mojave desert after hearing arguments Wednesday that claimed government land swapping does not translate to private ownership.

The case of Salazar v. Buono originated in 1999, with Frank Buono, a former park service official. Buono wrote to the National Park Service requesting the erection of a Buddhist shrine next to a cross in Sunrise Rock, a section of federal land in California’s Mojave Desert. The cross was built in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and in 2001 and 2002, the cross became a national war memorial that Congress said could not be dismantled using federal money.

In 2004, the Department of Defense swapped the land with the VFW in exchange for five acres elsewhere on the preserve. The question for the Supreme Court justices is now whether the memorial is on federal land.

If the Supreme Court agrees with the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which affirmed the district court’s decision, the cross will have to be removed.

Justice Ruth Ginsberg offered a hypothetical solution for the government, suggesting the government could remove the cross, then sell the land back to the VFW.

“Then we are talking about something that is rather formal rather than substantial,” Justice Ginsberg said. “If all the government would have to do is say, 'Congress, you didn't get it right. You should have just made the land swap.' And then the government would take down the cross in compliance with the injunction, and then it goes right back the next day.”

Buono's lawyer, managing attorney for southern California's ACLU Peter Eliasberg, added to the argument that a cross, as a national war memorial, is not a proper reflection of veterans who are not Christian.

As far as the contents of the national war memorial, Justice Ruth Ginsburg asked the Department of Justice's General Solicitor Elena Kagan if the memorial could be changed by the VFW. Kagan said yes, at the discretion of the VFW.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to deliver a decision in following months.