Mt. Soledad Cross DOJ Double Cross?

Timothy Birdnow

I have an eclectic reading habit; I read everything from history to science to philosophy, westerns, and science fiction. As a boy I loved science fiction, and was a huge fan of two particular writers - Isaac Asimov and Larry Niven. Niven is still writing some top s.f. He is best known for his "Known Space" stories, and is still coming out with them. A recent Known Space novel (Destroyer of Worlds) involved a character (Sigmund Ausfaller) who was mentally ill with paranoia (which qualified him first for a job in government then as head of security for an entire world). When introducing him in this particular novel he is thinking "paranoia is overrated".

Maybe so, but sometimes a little paranoia is helpful. After all, paranoids have enemies too, and in these political times there are more reasons to be paranoid than there are dollars being spent on Obamacare (and that number has skyrocketed to $1.76 Trillion, according to the CBO http://news.investors.com/article/604400/201203141851/cbo-obamacare-cost-double-obama-vow.htm).

This current Administration never does anything without some ulterior motive.

With that point firmly in mind, we must ask why the Obama Administration is asking the Supreme Court to overturn a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the Soledad Cross.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-administration-defend-cross-mt-soledad-war-memorial

According to the CNS news article:

"The Justice Department on Wednesday filed legal briefs asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in 2011 that the San Diego-area memorial was unconstitutional because it includes a commemorative cross.

In its petition to the Court, which was filed by Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, the government did not argue specifically that the cross belongs on the monument, but only that the appeals court had wrongly determined that the presence of the cross was inconsistent with the Establishment Clause.

“The decision below, if permitted to stand, calls for the government to tear down a memorial cross that has stood for 58 years as a tribute to fallen service members,” the government wrote.

“Nothing in the Establishment Clause compels that result, because the Establishment Clause does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm," said the Justice Department."

End excerpt.

Now, the 29 foot high cross has been a fixture at the Soledad Memorial for over half a century, and tradition alone makes it's demolition despicable. And the Obama Administration is doing the right thing - which makes me all the more paranoid; when those guys do the right thing, I wonder what they are really up to.

The American Center for Law and Justice has been spearheading this fight http://aclj.org/mt-soledad-cross/defending-mt.-soledad-cross-memorial-at-supreme-court and I have never seen the ACLJ on the same side as Holder and Obama.

What gives?

The CNS article implies that this is a bone they are throwing to Christians, and in an election year it may be so. There are still the Blue Dog Democrats to nail down; Ronald Reagan lured many of the religious, patriotic Democrats away from Jimmy Carter in the '80's, and Obama can ill-afford to lose them. But Obama has already dismissed the white blue collar vote. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067223/President-Obamas-2012-campaign-abandons-white-working-class-voters-favor-minorities-educated.html So, why does he need to do this now? What does he stand to gain?

I frankly don't know, but can hazard a guess. Could it be that the Administration wants to get legal precedent so as to defend the building of the Ground Zero mosque? If SCOTUS agrees that a cross can remain on federal property then opposition to a mosque being built anywhere would be seriously undercut. How can one argue for a Christian symbol on publicly owned land and deny Muslims the right to build where they see fit?

Or perhaps it is to justify inclusion of Islamic religious symbols at the Shankesville Memorial? The design for said memorial is a giant Islamic Crescent, to dishonor those brave men and women who died to stop Flight 93 from being used as a missile by Islamic radicals to kill Americans on September 11.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/flight-93-crescent-memorial-the-other-ground-zero-mosque/

If the Cross is okayed by the Supreme Court there would be no legal justification for blocking this abomination.

Or perhaps there are other reasons that as yet have not emerged? Is this simply a way to fight and lose? If DOJ argues they may purposely throw the case.

I don't know, but when I find myself on the same side as the Obama Administration I become worried.

Sometimes paranoia is just what a man needs!