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Friday July 25, 1997

Sale of Mount Davidson Cross likely to end church-state suit

NATALIE WEINSTEIN
Bulletin Staff

Voters of all faiths will likely have the final say on the fate of the Mount Davidson Cross -- the towering Christian symbol that has divided San Francisco since a lawsuit rejecting its presence on city land was filed seven years ago.

On Monday, San Francisco auctioned off the 103-foot cross and four-tenths of an acre of parkland surrounding it. The Council of Armenian American Organizations of Northern California won with a $26,000 bid.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will be asked Aug. 4 to accept the sale and place it on November's ballot.

"I assume it's going to pass. I hope it's going to pass," said Fred Blum, an American Jewish Congress attorney who represents the lawsuit's plaintiffs and wants to see the controversy come to an end.

An apparent snag cropped up Tuesday when a supervisors' committee sent the sale on to the full board without a recommendation. A city attorney questioned whether the plaintiffs would accept the sale or could work out remaining sticking points with the new owner.

But Blum, who had to leave Tuesday's meeting before he could speak, said the next day that he believes "the issues can be resolved."

If voters approve the sale this fall, the 1990 lawsuit that led to the auction will likely be settled. If voters reject the sale, the city could in the end be forced to raze the cross.

The Armenian-American council, a recently formed umbrella group of 24 organizations including at least four churches, plans to preserve the cross as a landmark and a place for reflection.

"We will make sure it's a symbol of tolerance," said Paul Tour-Sarkissian, the council's attorney.

The council also hopes to adopt the cross as a monument to the Armenian genocide.

The Turkish government began slaughtering Armenians in 1915 during World War I. Death toll estimates range from 800,000 to more than 2 million, according to Compton's Living Encyclopedia. Despite outside documentation, Turkey has long denied the event occurred.

Armenians mark the genocide each year on Martyrs' Day, April 24.

Blum considers turning the cross into a memorial "an appropriate use."

"To dedicate it to the Armenian genocide is maybe the first time the symbol will have a use and a feeling that maybe is greater than a particular religion," Blum said.

In his eyes, the Armenian genocide hasn't been given enough attention or study. In fact, Blum said, Adolf Hitler believed he could get away with the Holocaust because he saw the absence of any world reaction to the murder of Armenians.

The Armenian-American council beat out a $25,000 bid by the Friends of Mount Davidson Conservancy and a $20,000 bid by the Museum of the City of San Francisco.

The museum got involved through Richard Johns, a museum board member and a regional vice president of the American Jewish Committee. Johns, who said AJCommittee simply wanted to help resolve the issue, was pleased with the auction's outcome.

The lawsuit that led to Monday's auction was filed by nine San Franciscans of various faiths including one rabbi. Lawyers for the AJCongress, the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State represented the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs claimed the cross' presence on city land violated the separation of church and state. The city argued that the 63-year-old cross was a historical landmark akin to the Golden Gate Bridge.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the city's appeal of a 1996 ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that declared the cross' placement on public land unconstitutional.

Blum said he did have concerns about the auction even though his clients decided not to fight it.

Though the city couldn't legally force any of the bidders to preserve the cross, Blum asserted the city's preconditions for sale were so restrictive that they screened out everyone but those interested in keeping the cross.

"We chose not to oppose the auction. And that was not an easy decision for us to make," he said.

Mariam Morley, the deputy city attorney in charge of the lawsuit, said the preconditions of sale included maintaining the land as open space and open to the public.

"This was a totally public auction. Anybody could bid," she said.

The Armenian-American council will now be added as a defendant to the 1990 lawsuit. Blum said several remaining issues will need to be worked out with the council before the lawsuit can be settled.

For one, he said, the plaintiffs want the right to ensure that no new structures are built on the land. Right now, only the city is entitled to enforce that precondition of sale.

The plaintiffs also oppose lighting the cross at night, which hasn't happened since the law was filed.

Tour-Sarkissian said the council was eager to work with the plaintiffs.

"The council would like to be the voice of compromise," he said.

Rabbi Allen Bennett, one of the lawsuit's plaintiffs, reacted stoically to the auction. He doesn't care how the city solves the problem. He simply doesn't want a cross sitting on government property.

"I had never suggested a remedy," said Bennett of Alameda's Temple Israel. "How they solved the problem was a secondary concern of mine."

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