SAN DIEGO, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- The cross is a Christian religious symbol, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday, finding that a San Diego war memorial does not pass constitutional muster.
But the panel did not say the 43-foot cross on public land at Mount Soledad must be removed, the Los Angeles Times reported. The judges instead returned the case to the trial court to determine whether the cross can somehow be converted to a memorial that does not serve as a government endorsement of a particular religion.
Judge M. Margaret McKeown -- appointed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998 by President Bill Clinton -- made no suggestions for fixing the memorial, now controlled by the Department of Defense.
The litigation has pitted the American Civil Liberties Union, the Jewish War Veterans and other groups against the American Center for Law and Justice, which is representing 25 members of Congress in the case. The center argued that plaques put up to honor individual veterans, not all of them Christian, converted the cross from a Christian symbol to a war memorial.
The center, in a statement, said the panel dealt "a judicial slap in the face to the countless military veterans honored by this memorial."
"We honor those who have served, but the Constitution does not allow the government to exclude non-Christians by endorsing a clearly religious symbol," said David Blair-Loy, legal director of the ACLU in the San Diego area.
