Government Can Favor A Religion — If It’s Carved in Stone (AKA The Supreme Court Defecates on the Establishment Clause)
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that the city of Pleasant Grove, Utah does not have to allow a little known religious group called Summum to install their privately funded monument in the city park, despite the fact that there is already a Ten Commandments monument there.
From the New York Times article:
The case is of keen interest to local and state officials across the country for several reasons. Not least is that officials have been concerned about what kinds of markers and monuments, if any, they might be forced to allow in public areas. And while the case of Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, No. 07-665, involves religion, the real issue was free speech, not the separation of church and state.
The Summum group has contended that the Pleasant Grove City officials were no more entitled to discriminate among private monuments donated to a public park than they were entitled to forbid speeches and leaflets advocating viewpoints that they found unpalatable.
But Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the court, said the arguments embraced by Summum were not really the right way to look at the case. The core issue is not private speech in a public forum but, rather, the power of government to express itself, in this case by selecting which monuments to have in a public park, Justice Alito wrote.
“The Free Speech Clause restricts government regulation of private speech,” Justice Alito noted, referring to a clause in the First Amendment. “It does not regulate government speech.”
While a government entity is quite limited in its ability to regulate or restrict private speech in traditional public forums, like parks, the government entity “is entitled to say what it wishes,” Justice Alito wrote, citing earlier Supreme Court rulings. If the people do not like what their government officials say or stand for, they can vote them out of office, he wrote.
So, what do you think? Is this not at all a church/state issue but only a free speech issue? The court has said that a local government cannot limit the free speech of minority groups in such forms as standing on a soap box or handing out fliers, but it can exercise its own freedom of speech by picking and choosing the views it favors in monuments. So, is it spoken words or paper = free and unrestricted, while marble or cement = government favored only? What do you think the ramifications of this will be? Will, for instance, a city or state government’s “free speech” and therefore its discretion about religious displays spread beyond small town parks to government buildings? Will government’s ability “to express itself” enable it to require one kind of religious ritual over another in government proceedings?
from here
From the New York Times article:
The case is of keen interest to local and state officials across the country for several reasons. Not least is that officials have been concerned about what kinds of markers and monuments, if any, they might be forced to allow in public areas. And while the case of Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, No. 07-665, involves religion, the real issue was free speech, not the separation of church and state.
The Summum group has contended that the Pleasant Grove City officials were no more entitled to discriminate among private monuments donated to a public park than they were entitled to forbid speeches and leaflets advocating viewpoints that they found unpalatable.
But Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the court, said the arguments embraced by Summum were not really the right way to look at the case. The core issue is not private speech in a public forum but, rather, the power of government to express itself, in this case by selecting which monuments to have in a public park, Justice Alito wrote.
“The Free Speech Clause restricts government regulation of private speech,” Justice Alito noted, referring to a clause in the First Amendment. “It does not regulate government speech.”
While a government entity is quite limited in its ability to regulate or restrict private speech in traditional public forums, like parks, the government entity “is entitled to say what it wishes,” Justice Alito wrote, citing earlier Supreme Court rulings. If the people do not like what their government officials say or stand for, they can vote them out of office, he wrote.
So, what do you think? Is this not at all a church/state issue but only a free speech issue? The court has said that a local government cannot limit the free speech of minority groups in such forms as standing on a soap box or handing out fliers, but it can exercise its own freedom of speech by picking and choosing the views it favors in monuments. So, is it spoken words or paper = free and unrestricted, while marble or cement = government favored only? What do you think the ramifications of this will be? Will, for instance, a city or state government’s “free speech” and therefore its discretion about religious displays spread beyond small town parks to government buildings? Will government’s ability “to express itself” enable it to require one kind of religious ritual over another in government proceedings?
from here
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Comment by Derek on February 26, 2009 at 8:15am -
Based on what you posted above, I would tend to agree with Justice Alito. If, however the case was made in terms of discrimination, then it would be a different story. But since it was based on free speech, it makes sense that the government can decide what it wants to publicly support or not. In effect if they were to allow the monument then the would be saying they agree with it.
As I said if the case was made that by allowing a monument of the 10 commandments they should allow their monument as well, otherwise the state is discriminating based on religion, then that would be a different story, and probably would have had a different outcome. (most likely the 10 commandments monument would have been taken down, I believe).
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Comment by Pam on February 26, 2009 at 10:14am -
Will, for instance, a city or state government’s “free speech” and therefore its discretion about religious displays spread beyond small town parks to government buildings? Will government’s ability “to express itself” enable it to require one kind of religious ritual over another in government proceedings?
That's exactly what I was thinking. If the government is "is entitled to say what it wishes," then we potentially have more than religious discrimination to worry about. What if this had been a monument for Black history of the area, funded privately by a local group of Black citizens? Does that fall under the category of "free speech" or "civil rights"?
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Comment by Pam on February 26, 2009 at 10:23am
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Well, after reading all the much more intelligent responses on friendlyatheist, I'm inclined to agree with what Miko says:
The interesting issue here is that Pleasant Grove is trying to have things both ways: when the monument was installed, it was private speech and so not an Establishment Cause violation. However, after it was installed it became government property and so government speech and so did not create a limited public forum.
By firmly establishing that the monument is government speech, the Supreme Court (probably; though you’d need to read the decision to be sure) just laid the foundations for another group to sue to have the monument removed entirely on Establishment Clause grounds. So, in a sense this wasn’t necessarily a bad decision from the standpoint of freedom of religion.
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Comment by Gaytor on February 26, 2009 at 11:43am -
This is a good thing because it sets precedent that this is government speech and it can be squelched under the Establishment Clause. This was a poor filing tactic taken by an attorney that is going to open up Pandora's box and you'll see cases all over the nation come forth now. American's United and the Humanists have already expressed joy at this decision. Fret not for this is door and not a wall! Yeah, cheesy, but I'm leaving it in.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/religion/post/2009/02/63344651/1
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