20 Members of Congress Join FRC in Amicus Brief in Veterans' Memorial Case

WASHINGTON, March 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Family Research Council, along with three U.S. Senators and 17 U.S. Representatives, filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court of the United States supporting the petition for certiorari in the case Mt. Soledad Memorial Association v. Trunk. FRC's brief argues that this case reveals the serious flaws in the "endorsement of religion" test that the Supreme Court adopted in 1989, and uses to determine whether memorials or pieces of art on government property violate the Constitution.

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Despite the fact that this is a national veteran's memorial created by an act of Congress, the Obama/Holder Justice Department delayed and requested deadline extensions from the Supreme Court saying that they had not determined whether case was worth taking to the high court. After public pressure created by an op-ed published by the Director of FRC's Center for Religious Liberty, Ken Klukowski, J.D., in the Washington Examiner, the Justice Department reversed course and this past Monday asked the Court to take the case.

Klukowski co-authored FRC's amicus brief with distinguished constitutional law professor Nelson Lund of George Mason University School of Law. Klukowski made the following comments about the brief:

"This Mt. Soledad case is just the latest travesty in a long line of disturbing instances of federal courts striking down widely-accepted and longstanding expressions of faith in public life.

"But these tragic results are the predictable consequence of the profoundly wrong-headed endorsement test that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor invented out of thin air in the 1980s. These absurd results will continue until the Supreme Court overrules the endorsement test and returns to the historical understanding of the First Amendment, and we hope the Court takes this case as the opportunity to do so."

To read the amicus brief, click here: http://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF12C37.pdf

To read Klukowski's Washington Examiner op-ed, click here: http://bit.ly/wJ0hCH

SOURCE Family Research Council