E’ legittimo l’ordine di rimuovere una croce da un parco nazionale, in
quanto la sua presenza su luogo pubblico viola la establishment
clause. Gli interventi legislativi e del Governo per mantenere la
presenza della croce nel parco, anche se motivati da uno scopo
secolare come la conservazione di monumenti nazionali, violano il
principio di separazione e il divieto di intervenire a favore di una
determinata religione.
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In 1934, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), a private organization,
honored World War I veterans by placing a Christian cross on top of a
large outcropping known as Sunrise Rock, on public land in what is now
the Mojave National Preserve. Over the years, other private groups and
individuals have replaced the cross several times; then in 1998 Henry
Sandoz, a private citizen who lives in the area, erected the current
cross. In 1999, a Utah resident asked the National Park Service for
permission to erect a stupa, a type of Buddhist memorial, near the
cross. The Park Service rejected the request, saying that federal law
prohibits private parties from installing memorials and other
permanent displays on federal property without authorization. In
rejecting the Buddhist memorial, the Park Service also declared that
it intended to remove the cross from Sunrise Rock because the bureau
had never authorized its installation. In December 2000, in response
to this announcement, the U.S. Congress passed a law prohibiting the
use of government funds to remove the cross. Following the passage of
this law, the Park Service did not remove the cross from Sunrise
Rock.
In March 2001 Frank Buono, the former Assistant Superintendent, filed
a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of
California claiming that the National Park Service had to remove the
cross because its display violated the Establishment Clause. In
January 2002, while Buono’s lawsuit was still in the district court,
Congress designated the cross as a national memorial, putting it in a
select group with just 45 other national memorials, including famous
structures such as the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial.
In addition, Congress allocated federal funding to the Park Service
for the purpose of installing a memorial plaque at the site and
obtaining a replica of the original VFW cross. Shortly after, in July
2002, the district court held that the display of the cross on federal
property violated the Establishment Clause and ordered the Park
Service to remove it. Three months later, to ensure that the district
court’s order was not carried out, Congress passed another law that
banned the use of federal dollars to remove the cross.
The National Park Service then appealed the district court’s order to
the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In September 2003, while this
appeal was still in the 9th Circuit, Congress passed yet another law,
this time instructing the secretary of the interior to transfer
ownership of Sunrise Rock and a surrounding acre to the VFW. In
exchange, Sandoz, who had erected the current cross, voluntarily gave
the federal government approximately five acres of land that he owned
near Sunrise Rock. The 2003 law also stated that if the VFW used the
property as anything other than a memorial, the federal government
would regain ownership of the land. In June 2004, before the
secretary of the interior completed the property transfer to the VFW,
the 9th Circuit, in a unanimous opinion written by U.S. Circuit Judge
Alex Kozinski, affirmed the district court’s ruling that the Park
Service had to remove the cross because its display violated the
Establishment Clause. (fonte: pewforum.org)
