The secular fundamentalists are at it again. This time it’s suing to remove a 57-year old cross in San Diego that serves as a veterans memorial.

A three-judge panel in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (in the San Francisco area) has ruled the tall, concrete cross at Mt. Soledad to be unconstitutional. The ACLU filed suit on behalf of a Jewish group of veterans to remove the symbol.

The secular fundamentalists have their own vision for America, and it’s a lot closer to that of the failed Soviet Union–-where God was outlawed and churches were demolished or turned into museums–-than it is to the vision of the founders of America. Our nation’s founders wanted no one church to dominate the other churches or to rule over the government. They also wanted religion (that is, Christianity) to flourish on a voluntary basis. Eventually, that tolerance toward various Christian denominations was extended to other religions or those of no religion.

In short, the founders gave us freedom of religion.

But the secular fundamentalists are moving us toward freedom from religion.

There’s a huge difference. Freedom OF religion gives freedom to all, regardless of what they believe. Freedom FROM religion discriminates against the believer. Plus, in any country where they have established atheism officially, anyone who disagrees with the ruling party (or usually dictator) is on the outs–-even if he too is an atheist.

Stalin, the arch-atheist, had Leon Trotsky, another arch-atheist, Communist (and co-architect of the Soviet Union), hunted down all across the globe. Finally, in our hemisphere, one of Stalin’s followers managed to jam an ice pick in Trotsky’s brain.

Ideas have consequences.

Why can’t we learn from the failed Soviet Union? It’s this huge, 70-year nightmare of bloodshed unleashed by official atheism.

America is predicated on one thing: Our rights come from God. That’s what the Declaration of Independence says. The Constitution is predicated on the Declaration. Our 1776 birth certificate explains why we exist. The Constitution then explains how our government is to work.

When rights come from God, they are non-negotiable.

But the secular fundamentalists do everything they can to strip away our Judeo-Christian heritage. They’ve been quite successful at it. Now many of our schools have become something even Bill Clinton spoke against: “religion-free zones.”

A valedictorian can thank any power or person or force he or she wants to–-unless it’s the G-word or worse, the J-word. One valedictorian actually had her microphone cut off in the middle of her speech because the authorities feared she was going to thank Jesus Christ for his help. Score another one for the secular fundamentalists.

If the secular fundamentalists were successful in their goal to purge any reference to God or our Judeo-Christian heritage from public life, then eventually they would have to scrub the Constitution itself. That document mentions God. It even acknowledges the Deity of Jesus Christ. How so, you ask? It is signed “in the year of our Lord,” as in our Lord Jesus Christ. But that’s just a tradition, you might say. It doesn’t mean anything. If the fact that our Western calendar is based on the birth of Jesus means nothing, then how come the atheistic leaders of the French Revolution decided to toss out the calendar and make the year 1791 into Year 1 of the Republic? To get even further away from any Judeo-Christian influences, the Revolutionaries even abandoned the 7-day week (with its built-in Sabbaths–-Saturday for Jews and the Lord’s Day for the Christians) for a 10-day week. (Thankfully, Napoleon undid all these things.)

The secular fundamentalists had their way in the French Revolution, and the streets of Paris ran red with human blood. The secular fundamentalists had their way in the Soviet Union and in China and in Cambodia, etc., and The Black Book of Communism (Harvard University Press, 1996) documents the atrocities of 100 million people killed by the 20th Century Communists.

The scrubbing of all Judeo-Christian symbols from the public square is just another attack on our civilization from the secular fundamentalists. What’s next? The crosses at Arlington?

Dr. Jerry Newcombe is the senior producer and host of The Coral Ridge Hour. He has written or co-written 21 books, including The Book That Made America: How the Bible Formed Our Nation, and including 14 with the late Dr. D. James Kennedy. Jerry co-wrote (with Dr. Peter Lillback) the bestselling (#1 on Amazon), George Washington’s Sacred Fire. He hosts the website www.jerrynewcombe.com.