Duchesne to fight on in monument case

A split decision by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has handed Duchesne city another blow in its bid to keep a religious monument out of a public park.

Although the ruling rejects the city's bid for a rehearing before the Denver-based appellate court, attorneys for both the city and the religious group Summum say everything will remain status quo while litigation continues.

The 10th Circuit Court ruled in April that the city violated the First Amendment rights of the religious sect Summum when the City Council refused to let Summum erect a monument to their beliefs in Roy Park.

Edward White III, an attorney with the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., who is representing Duchesne, filed last week to stay the 10th Circuit Court mandate. White, who represents the city at no charge, is preparing to petition for a discretionary review before the U.S. Supreme Court. The court receives thousands of such petitions yearly and selects about 50 cases to hear.

White said he was encouraged by the fact that the 10th Circuit was evenly split in its ruling denying the rehearing and even more so by the dissenting opinions.

"I thought that the two dissents are exactly correct and that the panel ... plainly got it wrong. I am very encouraged that six of the 12 judges agree with us," said White. "Somewhere in January or February we will know if the Supreme Court will take the case."

Brian Barnard, a Salt Lake attorney representing Summum, hailed the decision by the court denying Duchesne's request for a rehearing, following the city's failed bid to have the entire case overturned last April. He urged the city to "step back and use common sense."

According to Barnard, the case is simply about "religious freedoms, free speech and fairness. If one private religious monument is allowed in a city park, all such monuments should be allowed."

The city first came under fire in 2003 by Summum for displaying a Ten Commandments monument on public property. Summum asked the city to either remove it or grant them the same privilege of placing in the park a monument to their beliefs, which center on mummification and other practices of early Egyptians.

The Duchesne City Council eventually sold the small parcel around the Ten Commandments monument to the Cole family. The Coles had donated the monument to the city in 1979 in memory of their late father.

A small white fence around the monument and a plaque state the property does not belong to the city. However, subsequent court rulings have come down on the side of Summum after the city rejected its attempt to have a marker erected to its "Seven Aphorisms."

Duchesne's case is joined with a similar Ten Commandments case in Pleasant Grove, where Summum is also petitioning to have its monument allowed on public property.

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