Lower Than a Snake’s Belly

MoonHowler

Remember the WWI memorial the vets built in honor of their fallen buddies from WWI that was erected out the the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert?  Some rat bastard has stolen it.  The cross that was actually a memorial has been embroiled in a Supreme Court Case in one form or another for a decade. 

Antibvbl.net covered the story of the Desert Cross  back in October, 2009.  Since then the land on which the cross was erected has been donated as private lands.  Huffington Post reports:

By Adelle M. Banks
Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS) The war memorial cross at the center of a recent Supreme Court ruling has been stolen, a spokeswoman for the Mojave National Preserve said Tuesday (May 11).

A wooden box had covered the controversial cross, which has been the subject of court cases for almost a decade. A preserve staffer noticed the box was missing on Saturday; by the time a maintenance crew showed up Monday to replace it, the cross also had disappeared, spokeswoman Linda Slater said.

On April 28, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the cross to stay up and directed a district court to further consider a congressionally approved transfer of the cross to private land.

“This is an outrage, akin to desecrating people’s graves,” said Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of Liberty Institute, which represents the caretakers of the World War I memorial and several veterans groups.

“It’s a disgraceful attack on the selfless sacrifice of our veterans. We will not rest until this memorial is reinstalled.”

According to CNN:

The 6-foot-tall metal structure was removed Sunday night from Sunrise Rock in a lonely stretch of the Mojave National Preserve, said government officials and veterans groups that have been fighting for years to keep the cross on national park land.

The National Park Service said it is investigating the incident; no arrests had been made as of Tuesday morning.

The high court on April 28 ruled the cross did not violate the constitutional separation of church and state. The American Civil Liberties Union, which had brought the original lawsuit to have the cross removed, promised to continue the court fight.

I consider myself a fairly strong establishment clause person. I very much believe in seperation of church and state…probably as much as some of the 2nd amendment people believe in their cause. However, at what point do people just go rabidly nuts on a subject?

This cross was erected back in the 1930’s by veterans of WWI to honor their buddies who didn’t make it home. Call it a grassroots memorial, if you will. It was out in the middle of no where in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It was honoring the dead. It wasn’t pushing religion even.

Whoever took the cross is a thief– a common thief. The individual(s) is lower than a snake’s belly. This person or persons doesn’t represent a cause. The memorial ought to be left alone. There is one remain WWI vet left in America. Those brave men who fought that horrible war now belong to time and the ages. Can’t people put aside their causes just this once? The cross that represents the memorial needs to be returned immediately.

The VFW has offered a reward for information that leads to the return of the memorial.