Summum v. Ten Commandments

The First Amendment's right of free speech does not require a city in Utah to display a small religious group's "seven aphorisms" next to a monument featuring the Ten Commandments in a public park, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously today.

Instead, the court said monuments in a park are the government's property. They are not akin to a speaker standing in a public park voicing his views.

The case arose when a small, home-grown religion called "Summum" asked to have its aphorisms given equal space in a city park with a monument featuring the commandments.

The Fraternal Order of Eagles had donated the commandments monument in 1971 to Pleasant Grove City, Utah. City officials accepted it, and it stood among several historic displays in the city's Pioneer Park.

Four years ago, city officials refused to allow the founders of Summum to erect a stone monument in the same park featuring the religion's "Seven Aphorisms." The new religion, begun in 1975, claimed its sayings were undiscovered messages from Mount Sinai.

When the city refused, Summum filed a lawsuit claiming its free-speech rights were violated. And to the surprise of the city and many legal experts, Summum won in the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Its judges said that once the park had been opened to one private group's message, others had a free-speech right to have their message displayed, as well.

That ruling set off alarms. If upheld, it could have opened the door to all manner of groups claiming their monuments and statues were entitled to equal space in city, state or national parks.

But the Supreme Court overturned the appeals court ruling today in Pleasant Grove v. Summum and said there is no free-speech right to erect a monument in a park. Its decision ignored the religious component of the monuments, since the case focused only on free speech.

"Although a park is a traditional public forum for speeches and other transitory expressive acts, the display of a permanent monument is not a forum of expression" protected by the free-speech clause of the First Amendment, said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. "Instead, the placement of a permanent monument in a public park is best viewed as a form of government speech," he said. And no one has a legal right to demand the government give equal time to its message, he added.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• religion
• summum
• utah
• supreme court
• seven aphorisms

[ferral317]

terrible

[jeffsupersaiyan]

you mean partial nudity vs words ?