The Supreme Court will be hearing the ACLU’s attempt to supress religious freedom by tearing down a war memorial tomorrow.  This will be a historic case that will affect future views on our First Amendment.  Former ACLU lawyer and good friend of mine, Rees Lloyd writes a good article to get people tuning in to how important this is.

From Joseph Infranco and Rees Lloyd’s email:

General Douglas MacArthur famously noted that “old soldiers never die; they just fade away.” Sometimes, though, before they fade away, they get angry. And a case being argued in the Supreme Court Wednesday has veterans seeing red, white, and blue — but mostly red.

Unsurprisingly, the case will go to the court courtesy of an ACLU lawsuit.

The object at the center of the case is a small, unadorned cross sitting in a remote part of the Mojave Desert Preserve in Southeast California. A veterans’ group erected this memorial cross on private land in 1934 to honor the dead of all wars.

Driving by this secluded location today, however, you’ll see a curious-looking plywood box hiding the memorial, the way someone might cover a condemned building. That box is there because one person filed suit, with the help of ACLU attorneys, claiming he was “offended” by the memorial cross. One offended man has somehow trumped the wishes of millions of veterans.

If a federal appeals court has its way, the box and the memorial soon will be gone forever. Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court will review the ruling at the request of the Department of Justice, and in this case, millions of veterans, speaking through The American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, have added their voices in support. In fact, the American Legion Department of California and the Alliance Defense Fund have joined forces and filed a brief in support of the Department of Justice, asking the Supreme Court to dismiss the lawsuit.

The U.S. Government recently acquired the land on which the memorial sits when the site became part of the Mojave Federal Preserve. After the ACLU lawsuit was filed, Congress worked with veterans to honor their wishes and preserve the monument. It took an act of Congress to rescue the memorial from a federal court decision ordering its destruction. As part of its action, Congress voted to give an acre of land containing the memorial back to the veterans who maintained it for decades, in exchange for five acres deeded to the government. Giving up one acre to get five, and honoring veterans in the process, seemed like a good deal.

But not to the ACLU and its “offended” client. To them, even this reasonable arrangement was intolerable. They pressed forward with their lawsuit saying the memorial must not be allowed to stand and the land transfer must be overturned; their hostility to a passive symbol of this sort is simply too great.

However, as bad as this case is, veterans know much more is at stake in this case than one memorial in the California desert.

Military memorials commonly use the cross as part of a display to honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to defend our nation. While the cross is a religious symbol, the military has also used it as a symbol of courage, sacrifice, and honor. For example, the nation’s second highest military award is the Distinguished Service Cross. Visitors to the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery can see several commemorative crosses, like the Canadian Cross of Sacrifice, a gift from former Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King that was dedicated at Arlington in 1927.

If the Supreme Court does not overturn the appeals court, religious symbols that have graced monuments for many decades may become a thing of the past. Memorials to military veterans, police officers, firefighters, and other heroes will be whitewashed, covered up, or torn out to appease the politically correct agenda of intolerant extremists.

Veterans are being asked to surrender to the thin-skinned sensitivity of an individual who has managed to be offended by a small memorial, literally in the middle of a desert. Is this truly an offense worthy of a lawsuit? Apparently, the fanatical agenda of the ACLU to expunge religious symbols has really come this far, and now the Supreme Court has the opportunity to weigh in.

One person’s offense should not diminish the sacrifice made by America’s heroes and their families. Why would we not wish to allow the men and women who have served and defended this nation to choose how they wish to honor their dead? Even if old soldiers “fade away,” their memory should not.

[Cross-posted from Stop the ACLU.]

Now that it’s been discovered that Medicare’s denial rate is roughly 1.7 times that of the top private carriers combined, will the AMA and Brother O’s “cherry picked” medical practitioners continue to sacrifice what’s left of their professional integrity and creditability to promote a government-run health care system that is more likely to deny patient care than administer it?

Supporters of ObamaCare’s public option parrot bromides damning private insurance companies for denying claims and canceling coverage.

“We are held hostage at any given moment by health insurance companies that deny coverage or drop coverage or charge fees that people can’t afford,” Brother O said in August.

Brother O neglected to mention that the worst offender is the oft touted government model, Medicare. The American Medical Association (AMA) and Brother O’s cherry-picked medical professionals endorse the public option because, like Medicare, it would be a better provider for patients when it comes to decision-making autonomy and the ability to get patients the care they need.

Beverly Gossage, Research Fellow for Show-Me Institute and founder of HSA Benefits Consulting, discovered in the AMA’s 2008 National Health Insurer Report Card that Medicare is most likely to reject a claim, denying 6.85 percent or 475,566 claims, which is more than the seven top commercial health insurers and is double their average.

Gossage’s findings mean the AMA, the cherry-picked medical professionals, and the ObamaCare supporters have endorsed a plan “whose closest existing example is the most frequent denier of claims.”

In television ads and news releases, supporters of ObamaCare have shamelessly portrayed insurance companies as insensitive greedy louts with itchy fingers on hair triggers willingly to deny claims for wealth. 

Will the shameless supporters of ObamaCare now portray the government-run insurer Medicare as a cold-blooded bunch of bookkeepers and bureaucrats? The cows will be home long before such a portrayal happens.

Consumer Reports has tossed away political neutrality to side with Democrats in support of a government run health care system that will be costly to consumers.

“[W]e are doing something that we’ve never done before. For the first time ever, Consumers Union is weighing in with a TV ad that calls on lawmakers to find a solution for health reform,” said Jim Guest, publisher of Consumer Reports.

The Consumers Union insists that the Democrat proposals will provide high quality care at lower costs, yet the exact opposite is true.  If enacted, the Democrats’ proposals would exacerbate a system in which consumers have no stake in the cost of medical services and products.

Consumer Report fails to present the downside of the Democrats’ health care proposals to help consumers to distinguish between truth and propaganda.

The Democrat proposals would create bureaucracies to monitor people’s lives, inject government into people’s private lives via centralized medical records, mandate health care that would tax people for failing to engage in economic activity, and involve the IRS in enforcing the mandate through receipt of individual health insurance information.

By aligning itself with proposals “laden with taxes, penalties, punishments, government bureaucracy and out-of-control spending,” Consumer Reports has diminished its status and destroyed a once noteworthy reputation for providing politically neutral, accurate information.