Humanists Mourn Death of Mount Soledad Cross Litigant Philip Paulson
October 26, 2006
For Immediate Release
Contact: Fred Edwords, (202) 238-9088
fedwords@americanhumanist.org
- www.americanhumanist.org
“The values of equal treatment under the law and government impartiality
towards religion ought to be regarded as the traditional family values that
they are.” – Philip Paulson, “Crossing Mount Soledad,” the Humanist
magazine, November/December 2006.
(Washington, D.C., October 26, 2006) Vietnam War veteran Philip K. Paulson,
who had launched a lawsuit in San Diego in 1989 to remove from public
property the city’s Mount Soledad Easter Cross, died of liver cancer on
Wednesday, October 25, 2006, at age 59. He has been a member of the American
Humanist Association for over 30 years, and made his last public statement
in a bylined article in the current issue of the Humanist magazine,
published by the organization on October 20. The American Humanist
Association had also honored Paulson on September 3 with its Humanist
Pioneer Award at a special banquet held in his honor in El Cajon,
California.
“Phil was sincerely very touched by receiving the award,” said AHA President
Mel Lipman, who had made the award presentation. “We have now lost one of
the most vigilant and patient heroes in the centuries-old struggle for the
separation of church and state.”
“We again need to publicly show our appreciation for Philip Paulson for all
he has done in the advancement of the humanist principles of compassion,
reason, scientific naturalism, and church-state separation,” added AHA
Executive Director Roy Speckhardt. “In addition to his heroic struggle
regarding the Mount Soledad Cross, Paulson was for decades an active local
leader in the Humanist Association of San Diego, an AHA chapter. Humanism
has thus lost a tireless laborer in the cause for a more rational, more
compassionate America.”
“Phil was a gentle giant of a man, imposing in stature and kindly in his
sympathies,” said longtime friend Fred Edwords, director of communications
for the American Humanist Association. “It had been my pleasure to induce
him to tell his Vietnam story, ‘I Was an Atheist in a Foxhole,’ published in
the September/October 1989 issue of the Humanist and now readily available
on the Internet.”
In the 17-year course of the legal conflict over the Mount Soledad cross,
Paulson had been victorious in all of his litigation. This had allowed him
to continue his efforts because his attorney, James McElroy, had secured
legal fees from the City of San Diego after each victory. But this
development was also a factor leading to the passage of House Bill HR 2679,
the Public Expression of Religion Act, passed on October 3, seeking to deny
attorney fees to lawyers who prevail in federal establishment-of-religion
cases. No comparable bill reached the Senate floor, however.
To continue his litigation after his anticipated death, Paulson added Steve
Trunk as a co-plaintiff on August 11. On October 17 oral arguments were
heard in the 4th District Court of Appeals on Paulson’s suit challenging the
transfer of the cross to the federal government, a transfer that had been
signed by President George W. Bush on August 14. And on September 22 his
latest case, challenging the constitutionality of the Christian symbol on
public property, was combined with the American Civil Liberties Union’s suit
led by the Jewish War Veterans. Paulson concluded his article in the
Humanist by saying, “Thus the struggle for liberty continues.”
