U. S. Supreme Court Would Probably Allow the Cross in the Mojave Desert - But the Court’s Up to Something Bigger!
Before the U.S. Supreme Court is a lawsuit about a large cross atop a rocky outcropping in a remote part of California’s Mojave Desert. Originally erected in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars as a memorial to fallen WWI soldiers, it is on a federal preserve under the authority of the U.S. Park Service.
Whether the cross is permissible is not the new or precedent setting type of question the Court usually takes up to clarify the law, and the case is rather old, with a twisted history leading to an unusual question for the Supreme Court — so why is the Court deciding it? I think it is to make a more dramatic change in the law through the effect of a decision on standing: more on that below.
The Cross in Dispute. Credit: Eric Nystrom
Two courts, trial and appellate, decided in 2002 and 2004 that display of the cross on…
