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Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution. This memorial is in my district. It is a very prominent memorial, not just in the landscape, but in the history of San Diego County.
I remember as a child my father driving me past this memorial and looking up and saying this is one of the few memorials in the country that recognize the heartbreak of what went on in Korea. As a Korean veteran, he was also very much impressed with the fact that San Diegans set aside a memorial for the Korean War.
Frankly, I am shocked in a time of war, a time when our men and women are out exchanging deadly fire with the enemy, that we are talking about destruction of a war memorial. It is a war memorial dedicated to 800-plus people that never came back from the Korean War, the missing in action.
Now, in San Diego County, we have many religious symbols on public lands. We have a cross to Father Serra on Presidio Hill. We have a cross to Cabrillo, who found San Diego Harbor. We have Point Loma. We have a county synagogue in our county park, and we have a cross on Mount Helix that was set aside by a gentleman for his wife. We are not asking to tear those religious symbols down.
All I have to say, Mr. Speaker, is we have enough tolerance for a cross to Father Serra. If we can find the tolerance to save a major historical building such as the synagogue, Beth Israel Synagogue, if we can find the tolerance to have a cross for Cabrillo, my God, can't we find the tolerance to preserve a war memorial to 800,000 missing in action in Korea? This really is about common sense, common decency and tolerance.
Mr. Speaker, there are those who will find excuses to attack what they may not like, but this is not about religion; it is about the tolerance of our heritage and the memorials to those who have fought for our heritage across the board. I would just like to point out, if somebody wants to say that this is somehow a Christian conspiracy, that Phil Thalheimer, the chairman of Save the Cross, happens to be of the Jewish faith, his family survived the terrible Holocaust in Europe.
One of his biggest statements that his family always talked about, the first thing that the Fascists wanted to do was to destroy religious symbols when his parents were trying to escape.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the State of California has many religious symbols, and we do too here. All I have to say is I don't think anybody in California or in this Chamber is asking for the cross in Father Serra's hands to be taken off that statue in Statuary Hall. The fact is that both of the statues for California happen to be someone who is affiliated with the Christian faith. But their affiliation with
Christianity does not change the historical significance or the justification and the logic of us honoring him here in Washington.
Mr. Speaker, we are asking today to do a very easy thing. Understand that mistakes can be made by courts; but the voters have said very clearly they do not find offense in a memorial to veterans. They do not find offense to this symbol for these people, for the people that committed so much for America.
I would ask anyone who thinks that the cross is offensive, because it is a religious symbol, to go to the memorial and walk around the wall of it. You will see every religious symbol thinkable around that memorial that has been dedicated.
If we take this cross down because someone may take offense to a religious symbol, when will they next go for the Star of David, the star or crescent? They will go after the other symbols that somebody may take offense to.
Mr. Speaker, I think we need to honor our war dead, our missing in action from Korea. We should honor ourselves by showing that tolerance is not a politically correct catch term, but truly is the sign of an enlightened people, that as Moses looks down on us here, we will be proud to have him guide us on this vote.
I ask for a ``yes'' vote on this, and ask you, for the people of the 50th District of California, to support their will, support their veterans, and vote ``yes'' on this resolution.
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