Less than two weeks after a Supreme Court ruling opened the way to preserving the historic Mojave Desert Cross commemorating our veterans, enemies of the symbol dismembered and removed it from its rock foundation. The conservative Court victory for this landmark has been rendered Pyrrhic by an unlawful act of vandalism.

In 1934 a simple wooden cross was erected in the Mojave Desert in Southern California by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). In the 1990s, the original cross was replaced with a metal upgrade, which stood seven feet tall on a remote outcropping in the Mojave Desert. The cross’ inscription stated that it honored “the Dead of All Wars.”

For the past nine years, the Mojave Desert Cross has withstood an intense legal attempt to force its removal based on a leftwing interpretation of the Establishment Clause. In 2001, Frank Buono, a former Park Service employee, filed a lawsuit against the memorial on the grounds that it violated an alleged constitutional requirement of separation of church and state.

After the liberal Ninth Circuit ordered removal of the cross, Congress transferred from public to private ownership the tiny section of land on which the cross stood. This should have disposed of any argument that government was endorsing the cross by hoisting it on public land. Crosses can be erected on private land despite intolerant liberals.

But in 2008 the Ninth Circuit stepped in again and insisted that the cross be removed rather than transferred to private ownership. Defenders of the cross appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, it remained censored from public view by a large tarp covering.

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to reverse the decision of the Ninth Circuit, with a remand for it to reconsider. Salazar v. Buono, 2010 U.S. LEXIS 3674 (Apr. 28, 2010). Specifically, the Court rejected the claim that the Cross automatically violated the Establishment Clause and ordered the lower court to review the facts again.

Justice Kennedy, writing for the Court, elaborated on the important difference between complete exclusion of religion from the public square and proper enforcement of the Establishment Clause. He wrote, “The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm. … The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion's role in society. A relentless and all-pervasive attempt to exclude religion from every aspect of public life could itself become inconsistent with the Constitution.”

This ruling allowed the Mojave Cross to continue honoring the memory of veterans, as it had done for 76 years. But within two weeks, maintenance workers found that the bolts holding the cross to the rock had been cut and the cross was gone.

This petty intolerance outraged veterans nationwide. One veterans group offers a $25,000 reward for locating the perpetrators of this desecration.