The leader of the nation's largest veterans organization criticized last week's decision by the 9th Circuit Court to remove a cross from a World War I veterans memorial in California's Mojave Desert as the beginning of the "slippery slope of extreme secularism.""This is one more prime example of wrong-headed political correctness and one more critical reason why the current Congress must pass the Public Expression of Religion Act," said American Legion National Commander Marty Conatser [photo at right]. "This is not about freedom of religion. The First Amendment also says Congress shall pass no law 'prohibiting the free exercise' of religion. The cross is an important symbol to millions of veterans, some of whom had to make the ultimate sacrifice for this nation."
Referring to the federal Court's September 6 decision, Conatser said that across the nation litigation is being brought by the ACLU and other groups attacking the Boy Scouts, the public display of the Ten Commandments and other symbols of America's religious history. "Today's lawyers and judges are outlawing the values and religious symbols that the Founding Fathers revered and proclaimed as the very foundation of the American republic," he said. "Today it's a memorial. Tomorrow, these same judges can order the removal of crosses on veterans gravestones, the dismissal of military chaplains and the closure of base chapels."
Conatser pointed out that a loophole in the current law allows the ACLU and other groups to collect millions of dollars in attorney's fees from the taxpayers, who, by and large, support the memorials... (Source: Christian Newswire)
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