Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
A Superior Court judge ruled Friday that a July ballot measure transferring ownership of a 29-foot cross on city parkland to the federal government was unconstitutional.
Judge Patricia Cowett said Proposition A, approved by about 75 percent of San Diego city voters during a special election, was an “unconstitutional aid to religion.”
Cowett said the measure was invalid because it violates the California Constitution’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion.
The city has been embroiled in a 16-year legal battle over whether the presence of the cross on city-owned property violates the separation of church and state. The cross was dedicated in 1954 as a memorial to soldiers of the Korean War.
