300 Rally at Foot of Mt. Helix Cross

In an outpouring of support for an embattled regional landmark, 300 people lighted the Mt. Helix Cross Monday evening with candles and flashlights to show their opposition to the court-ordered razing of the 36-foot-high religious symbol.

The throng walked the half-mile to the cross before lighting candles and shining flashlights on the 66-year-old cross, situated in a 4-acre county park near La Mesa.

“We’re trying to say that it should remain standing as a historical landmark, as a community marker and as a symbolic memorial,” John D. Mead, president of the Grossmont-Mt. Helix Improvement Assn., said in an interview.

“Certainly it is a religious symbol,” Mead added. “My personal feeling is that it is a symbol that stands for what’s good in the world. If it was a Star of David up there, I would have the same feeling for it.”

U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. ruled Dec. 3 that the prominent crosses atop Mt. Helix and La Jolla’s Mt. Soledad violate the separation of church and state mandated by the state Constitution. Thompson also ordered the city of La Mesa to remove depictions of the Mt. Helix cross from its official insignia.

Thompson’s ruling caused an outcry throughout the county, where the two crosses have stood for decades as highly visible landarks. The San Diego City Council and the County Board of Supervisors voted to appeal the decision, and both governments began exploring ways to transfer crosses and the land on which they stand out of public hands.

But to organizers of Monday night’s vigil, the issue was not religious diversity or legal doctrine, but preservation of a memorial that has been part of the East County landscape since almost anyone can remember.

“It’s always been a part of my life,” said Sean Carroll, a 15-year-old Valhalla High School student who last year won a county historic designation for the Mt. Helix cross after immersing himself in its history as part of a seventh-grade report. The cross has also been named a state historic point of interest.

“Somebody’s got to stop this and recognize the historical significance.”