Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.

A local Christian group wants the military to appeal a federal judge’s decision requiring the removal of the 65-foot cross from Camp Smith.

Military spokesmen wouldn’t comment yesterday on the decision or whether an appeal would be filed.
U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan in Washington, D.C., said the cross at the Marine camp appears to be an unconstitutional endorsement of religion by government and it must be removed or replaced by a non-religious symbol.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii filed a challenge to the cross in federal court in Honolulu but dropped the case so the Washington lawsuit could proceed.

Toni Swalinkavich, spokeswoman for the Friends of the Cross, said, “The ACLU (who should be known as the ‘Anti-Christian Liberties Union’) are the people responsible for the removal of the Camp Smith Memorial Cross, which was dedicated to MIA/POWS in Southeast Asia.

“Speaking on behalf of the over 26,000 people of all faiths who signed our petition,” Swalinkavich said the group wants military officials to appeal the decision “all the way to the Supreme Court as they have promised.”

Mark Swalinkavich, Toni’s husband, said he doesn’t agree with the judge’s ruling, saying the First Amendment “does not call for total separation of church and state, as many are misled to think.”

While the Rev. John P. Engelcke, editor of the Hawaiian Church Chronicle of the Episcopal Church, supports the cross as a symbol of Christianity, he said it “is so specifically Christian that it is nonsense to claim that it is suitable as a ‘beacon of hope’ for non-Christians and those with no religion.

“To impose it from federal property on the military and civilians who live nearby and pass through is wrong,” Engelcke said.

“I am glad the federal court has ordered this violation of the First Amendment down. Without the First Amendment, we are all in trouble.”