Mount Soledad Cross Must Go...

...So says the San Diego City Council.

The 16-year saga of whether the cross would stay on public land in La Jolla came to an emotional conclusion last night as the council voted 5-3 to reject a last-ditch effort to keep it in place.

But the cross now must be moved to comply with an injunction forbidding its presence on public land. Federal Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. issued the injunction in 1991, when he ruled that the cross violated the state Constitution's guarantee of separation between church and state. Thompson had left it to the city and the lawyers in the case to resolve the matter.

In the latest court decision in the case, a panel of the 9th Circuit Circus Court of Appeals ruled in 2002 that the constitutional violation still existed when it struck down the city's second attempt to sell the land to a private buyer.

More.