Rees Lloyd: Oregon Man & ACLU Give Up Fight to Destroy California War Memorial

The Cross Will Rise Again in the Mojave Desert

The Cross Shall Rise in the Mojave Desert Again!

This is a result of a settlement approved by the U.S. District Court in Riverside, CA, Tuesday (April 24, 2012) in which the ACLU, the Taliban of American liberal secularism,  finally gave up in its twelve (12) year long lawsuit jihad to destroy the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial by tearing down the  Cross  honoring veterans of WWI. See our previous posts on this here,  here, here, here, here, and here.

The settlement provides for a land swap in which five acres of private land will be donated to the federal government in exchange for one-acre of land on which the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial is located will be transferred to the VFW for care and maintenance to preserve the Veterans Memorial as it once was, with Cross intact.

 

That land exchange is exactly what was established by Congress in legislation authored and sponsored by Congressman Jerry Lewis (R-CA, 41st District), a decade ago after his constituent veterans in American Legion District 21 (22 Posts, 6,000 members in Riverside County), called on Rep. Lewis to help save the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial. (See the statement on the settlement issued by Congressman Lewis, attached below.)

The Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial was established in 1934 by members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars to honor the service of WWI veterans. It consisted of two pipes strapped together in the shape of a Cross, and placed on a rock out crop known as Sunrise Rock. It  is eleven (11) miles off of the highway. You have to drive to it to be offended by it. 

The Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial Cross stood in the remote desert for more than 60 years without a single complaint. However,   the ACLU filed a lawsuit to destroy the Cross in 2001 on behalf one Frank Buono, the former Ass't Superintendent of the Mojave Desert Preserve. (Buono vs. Salazar, et al.) Buono  retired from the National Park Service; moved to Oregon on his fat federal pension;  then sued to destroy the Cross more than 1,000 miles away in California  as a poster-boy for the ACLU, claiming he might drive back through the desert one day and would be "offended" by the sight of the Cross on federal land, although he had done nothing to prevent or remove the Cross when he had the power to do so as Ass't Superintendent. On such dross as this does the ACLU carry out its jihad to destroy Crosses on public display at veterans memorials and elsewhere.

In 2002, the Riverside U.S. District  Court granted ACLU's request to destroy the Cross honoring WWI veterans. American Legionnaires in District 21 initiated a fight back against the ACLU and to save the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial. This fightback included our request to Rep. Lewis for legislative action, to which he quickly responded as a longtime supporter of veterans.  The fightback also consists of a series of Resolutions which resulted in the National American Legion launching a national campaign to fight the ACLU's abusive litigation attacks under the Establishment Clause against our veterans memorials, the Boy Scouts, Public Seals and other public expressions or display of American history and heritage which include a religious aspect, almost always the Cross. 

The American Legion published more than 50,000 copies of a "grass roots" guide entitled "In The Footsteps Of The Founders" to its more than 14,000 Posts and 2.4-millioin members on how to fight the ACLU and other intolerant secular-cleansing extremist organizations. 

The American Legion, based on a resolution "Preserve Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial" which District 21 initiated and I wrote which was adopted at the 2004 National Convention, called for adoption of  the Veterans Memorials, Boy Scouts, Public Seals And Other Public Expressions of Religion Act ("PERA"), sponsored by then-Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind., 8th Dis.) and prominently supported by Rep. Jerry Lewis. 

PERA  would rescind the authority of courts to award the ACLU, or anyone else, judge-ordered but taxpayer-paid attorney fee "awards" in Establishment Clause attacks. The ACLU has exploited federal statutes intended to benefit the poor by providing attorney fees in legitimate civil rights cases to enrich the ACLU itself with profits in Establishment of Religion Clause cases. ACLU  uses the very threat of imposition of its fees by judges' orders to intimidate local governmental bodies into surrender to the ACLU's demands to wipe the Cross out of public display -- and thus out of history--on claims of Establishment of Religion clause violations. The PERA bill passed the House in 2006 but stalled in the Senate when then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter refused to call the PERA bill up for hearing, or allow it to go before the floor for a vote, before the 2006 elections in which Democrats took over Congress. The PERA bill has been re-introduced in the 112th Congress.

Also, in 2006, the  Defense of Veterans Memorial Project of the American Legion Dept. of California and the Alliance Defense Fund was co-founded by Joseph Infranco of the ADF and me. In 2007, Defense of Veterans Memorials Project became a National American Legion project. Since 2006, the American Legion has joined in the litigation to save both the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial and the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial, along with such other patriotic organizations as Liberty Institute, the Alliance Defense Fund, and many others, including in particular the  Thomas More Law Center, which has led the fight to save Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial which has been under litigation attack by the ACLU and ACLU-related attorneys for twenty-three (23) years now. Petitions for review are pending in the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal Order to destroy the Mt. Soledad Memorial Cross.

ACLU has used the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial Cross Case as a precedent in its litigation to destroy the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial Cross. It can no longer be used in that way. Although the ACLU claimed its only objection to the Mojave Desert Cross was that it was on federal land, the ACLU did not support Congressman Lewis' land swap legislation which removed the Memorial from federal to private lands. On the contrary, ACLU went back to court, claiming the Act of Congress itself was a violation of the Establishment Clause. The District Court again kowtowed to the ACLU, and issued an injunction barring implementation of the Act. Appeal was taken. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeal, led by Presiding Judge Alex Kosinski, a porno pervert who was exposed in 2008 and later found guilty by his peers of publishing pornography on his website. He authored an opining  ordering the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial Cross destroyed. 

However, in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court granted review. It reversed the 9th Circuit decision, and remanded the case to the U.S. District Court in Riverside. Now, after causing years of litigation and collecting tens of thousands of dollars in judge-ordered attorney fees (which it will keep), the ACLU has signed an agreement ending the twelve-year long litigation jihad against our Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial based on the same land exchange that Congressman Jerry Lewis achieved in the legislation he sponsored.

This fight to save the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial was won by the combined efforts of many, many patriots and patriotic organizations, and patriotic supporters.  (For more background on those efforts, see the archived stories on www.WorldNetDaily.com, which has has provided the best, most consistent, and most accurate reporting on these cases; including my guest columns on WND and on www.NewsWithViews.com). ;

But without the efforts of Congressman Jerry Lewis to author and obtain adoption of legislation by Congress to save the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial, the litigation may have had a very different result. The very first resolution which I wrote, District 21 sponsored, and the National Executive Committee of the American Legion adopted in 2003, was a resolution in support of Congressman Jerry Lewis' efforts to secure legislation preserving the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial. I therefore salute Congressman Jerry Lewis who responded when veterans called. I respectfully refer you readers to his statement below which sets forth other and further facts.

Now, the fight must go on to save the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial Cross, which has been led by the Thomas More Law Center, generally and in particular through its Western Regional Director San Diego Attorney Charles LiMandri, who has done more than any single person to save Mount Soledad. Regarding the victory in the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial Cross Case,  and the need to continue the fight to save the Mt. Soledad Cross Case, Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, told me:  “This is a great victory for veterans and America’s fallen warriors. Whenever and wherever the ACLU attempts to remove this universal and sacred symbol of sacrifice, patriotic Americans and organizations must oppose them, as they did in this case of the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial."

The U.S. District Court in San Diego ruled in our favor and against the ACLU in the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial Case (Trunk vs. City of San Diego), the basis that a reasonable person would understand that the Cross at Mt. Soledad is intended to honor the service and sacrifice of veterans, not to endorse religion or any particular religion. However, the 9th Circuit reversed that decision and ordered the Cross destroyed. Liberty Institute first filed a petition for review in the U.S. Supreme Court as attorneys for the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association. The Department of Justice later filed a petition for review as attorneys for the defendant Department of Defense and federal defendants. Thomas More Law Center, the American Legion, and many others have filed friend of the court briefs in support of Supreme Court review.

The importance of the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial Cross Case and the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial Cross Case cannot be overstated. What is really at stake in these cases, the two most important Establishment of Religion Clause cases pending involving veterans memorials, is whether 300-million Americans shall continue to have the right to honor their war dead and the service and sacrifice of other veterans as they choose; or whether the ACLU and other intolerant secular extremists shall have a veto power over those decisions.

The lesson of the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial Case is clear: We must never give up, never surrender. We must continue to wage the fight against the ACLU and other secular extremists the way that Gen. Patton waged war--"Audacity, Audacity, Audacity--Always Audacity." 

We American Legionnaires in District 21 were told when we began the fight to save the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial that we could not win, "the ACLU has too many lawyers, too much money. You can't win." We did win. It took over ten years but by being relentless and committed to our mission, fighting the ACLU as Patton fought war, the ACLU was brought down in its attacks on our veterans memorial. Patton was right. Thomas Jefferson was right in his personal motto: "Opposition To Tyranny Is Obedience To God." By attempting to faithfully follow In The Footsteps Of The Founders, and with God's aid, we can say today: The Cross shall rise again at the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial!

We must continue the fight against the ACLU to say tomorrow: The Mount Soledad National Veterans Memorial Shall Remain As It Is, Where It Is."

FOR GOD AND COUNTRY FOREVER; SURRENDER TO THE ACLU--NEVER!

--REES LLOYD

 (Life Member American Legion Riverside Post 79; Past Commander District 21 (Cal.); Co-founder and first Director of The Defense of Veterans Memorials Project of District 21 and of The American Legion Dept. of California and the Alliance Defense Fund.* [*For purposes of identification only. The views expressed herein are solely those of Attorney Rees Lloyd and no person, entity, or organization he may otherwise represent.]

Here's background on the cross.

FOR GOD AND COUNTRY FOREVER; SURRENDER TO THE ACLU--NEVER!

--REES LLOYD

 (Life Member American Legion Riverside Post 79; Past Commander District 21 (Cal.); Co-founder and first Director of The Defense of Veterans Memorials Project of District 21 and of The American Legion Dept. of California and the Alliance Defense Fund.* [*For purposes of identification only. The views expressed herein are solely those of Attorney Rees Lloyd and no person, entity, or organization he may otherwise represent.]