Story highlightsThe judge orders the giant cross must be removed in 90 daysBut judge also orders cro...

1. Judge says giant cross must be removed from San Diego
mountain
Story highlights
The judge orders the giant cross must be removed in 90 days
But judge also orders cross can stay if case is appealed
The fight over giant cross in San Diego has been going on for decades
A giant cross that has stood on a Southern California mountain for decades must be removed
because it violates the constitutional separation of church and state, a judge ordered this week.
The order Thursday by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns continues a long legal battle about the 43-
foot cross atop Mt. Soledad in San Diego.
Burns ordered that the cross would have to be removed within 90 days. But the cross may be able to
stay if the case is appealed, the judge ordered.
"Of course we are disappointed in what the ruling is -- that is to take the cross down," Bruce Bailey,
president of the Mount Soledad Memorial Association told CNN affiliate KGTV.
Bailey said his organization plans to appeal, which would mean the cross would stay as the decades-
long legal battle continued.
Long legal battle
The cross was erected in 1954 in honor of Korean War veterans and has been the subject of near
constant judicial back and forth since 1989, when two Vietnam War veterans filed suit saying it
violated the California Constitution's "No Preference" clause.
Since the first lawsuit in 1989, the city of San Diego twice tried selling the property beneath the
cross to the Mount Soledad Memorial Association, only to be stopped by the courts.
In 2004, the parties involved reached an agreement that would have moved the cross to a nearby
church, but two congressmen intervened and inserted a rider into the 2005 omnibus budget bill that
designated the property a national veterans memorial and authorized the federal government to
accept the donation of the property.
This led to more fights and more court filings.
In 2006, three congressmen pushed through a bill calling for the government to seize the property
by eminent domain -- calling it "a historically significant war memorial." The federal government
took possession in August of that year.
A lawsuit was filed challenging that transfer almost immediately and that has led to Thursday's
ruling.

2. http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/13/justice/california-cross-battle/