From Deseret News archives:

Justices to hear Pleasant Grove tablets case: Top court to decide city's monument dispute

Published: Tuesday, April 1, 2008 12:18 a.m. MDT
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
PLEASANT GROVE — This small-but-growing Utah Valley city is getting a bit of national notoriety. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a free-speech case in which a religious group wants to place a religious monument in a park.

Officials in Pleasant Grove asked the court to step into the lawsuit brought by the religious group Summum, saying that if the group prevails, governments would be inundated with demands to display donated monuments.

Attorneys for Pleasant Grove say they're excited to be able to address the First Amendment issue.

"We're delighted that the Supreme Court has agreed to take this case," Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a constitutional law firm based in Washington, D.C., that is representing Pleasant Grove, said in a statement to the Deseret Morning News. "This is a critically important First Amendment case that focuses on the well-established distinction between government speech and private speech."

The dispute stems from Pleasant Grove's refusal to allow the display of a "Seven Aphorisms of Summum" monument in the same park that is the home to a Ten Commandments monument donated 47 years ago by the Fraternal Order of Eagles.

Story continues below
At issue is whether a donated monument displayed by a municipality remains the private speech of the original donor or is government speech; and whether placing donated monuments in a government-owned park creates a public forum or whether the government retains authority to select which monuments to display.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled in favor of Summum, saying the monument remains the private speech of the donor and that the park is a public forum.

Sekulow said that the Supreme Court can change the interpretation of the amendment and the decision by the appeals court.

"We're hopeful the Supreme Court will ultimately conclude that the appeals court got it wrong," he said. "This is an important opportunity for the high court to correct a flawed interpretation of the First Amendment."

In asking the Supreme Court to intervene, lawyers for Pleasant Grove wrote: "Government bodies are now sitting targets for demands that they grant 'equal access' to whatever comparable monuments a given group wishes to have installed, be it Summum's Seven Aphorisms, an atheist group's Monument to Freethought or Rev. Fred Phelps's denunciations of homosexual persons."

In response, Summum said government bodies always have the option of banning display of all privately donated monuments.

Recent comments

City park, does not this belong to the People? Why not let them vote...

Lyverne | Oct. 5, 2008 at 4:05 p.m.

lol, this country is not a christian country, in the treaty of...

axt113 | April 5, 2008 at 8:33 a.m.

my suggest is to have this Monumenst move to any Church Land who...

Move Monuments somewhere | April 1, 2008 at 9:06 p.m.

Image

This Ten Commandments monument in a Pleasant Grove park at 100 South and 100 East was donated 47 years ago by the Fraternal Order of Eagles. The city has been fighting demands by the religious group Summum that it allow another monument in the park of the group's Seven Aphorisms.

previousnext

Latest comments

I am concerned about the lack of variety in the play calling. I am...

Hall breaks BYU record with win

Vegas Bowl is on ESPN, and when you are snubbed from the BCS for your joke of...

Utes crush Aztecs 38-7

Stuck in Provo | 7:10 p.m. Nov. 21, 2009 wrote: "It was a real treat...

Who would of thought that living close to a mine where they found uranium...

Hall breaks BYU record with win

...the pathetic anti-Mormon homosexuals call the Mighty Cougars "Yners" for...

Contrats to Hall. 30 wins (so far) in 3 years is truly an accomplishment. I...

5A: Miners' Cantwell makes name

As a former coach of Stefan I couldn't be happier for him. He is as good a...

Palin's book shows she's unqualified

Palin doesn't really want to be president either. She didn't even want to be...

"WHAT'S TO PREVENT THE GOVERNMENT FROM TAKING MY MONEY AND THEN GIVING IT TO...

would love it so much

Advertisements