The Mojave Cross. (AP Photo/Liberty Legal Institute, Henry and Wanda Sandoz)
The Mojave Cross. (AP Photo/Liberty Legal Institute, Henry and Wanda Sandoz)
"Vandals toppled and removed the 8-foot-high cross at Mojave National Preserve in California less than two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled the controversial memorial could remain on federal property," Stars and Stripes reports.
According to the Associated Press, "the National Park Service says someone cut the bolts holding down the metal-pipe cross and made off with it late Sunday or early Monday."
The Liberty Institute, a conservative advocacy group that has represented the memorial's caretakers, has issued a statement calling the theft "an outrage, akin to desecrating people's graves," and offering a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.
It was just two weeks ago, as NPR's Nina Totenberg reported on Morning Edition, that the Supreme Court ruled that lower courts went too far in ordering the dismantling of the cross, which was erected on public land to honor the soldiers who died in World War I. Nina added that:
"The case now goes back to the lower courts, where civil libertarians will seek to show that the cross received favored treatment not accorded to other religions. Exhibit A will be the refusal by the Park Service to allow a Buddhist shrine to be built in the Mojave Desert.
"But the language in Wednesday's Supreme Court decision strongly suggested the land transfer was justified in this instance, even if extra steps must be taken to ensure that the public knows the cross is a privately maintained memorial."
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