The Supreme Court's monumental decision

This interesting court case just recently came to my attention. In it, a small religious group petitioned to have a monument depicting their religious creed erected in a public place that already had the Ten Commendments of the Judeo-Christian tradition erected. The court unanimously decided that the local government was not obligated to accept every donation, and that the rejection of a given monument was not the same thing as a denial of free speech.

Now, setting aside the idea that this puts my plans to have the Flying Spaghetti Monster tastefully rendered in bronze and set up in Love Park (actually, in my city, this might not be too freaky) quite aback, my real concern about this decision is that it seems to leave open the idea that a local government may pick and choose to accept monuments depicting those faiths that are for whatever reason acceptable to display. Ten Commandments or a big old cross--possiblly will grace the public spaces. But your statue of Samantrabhadra and consort probably won't happen. (Especially not in this country.) Even the Son of Man Himself, crowned with thorns in the full final passion pose--possible. Given the make-up of the local city fathers. But your Tammuz with a nail run in his eye, or even a nice, Celtically-styled pentagram--no.

Obviously, the argument of the Summum group was not a strike at the "establishment" clause, which is why the potential for favoritism by the Powers that Be is untouched. So far.

To quote from the story:

Brian Barnard, the Summum's lawyer in Salt Lake City, said in a statement the group would continue to press its case against Pleasant Grove City by arguing that governments can't favor one religion over another.

"The emphasis in the case will shift to the Establishment Clause which prohibits government favoring one religion over another," Barnard said. "That is what Pleasant Grove has done. The City has adopted as their own the religious tenets of the Ten Commandments and given those precepts a prominent display in their public park."

A call to Summum in Salt Lake City was referred to Barnard, who did not argue in front of the court but was at the arguments.

"It does not take a constitutional scholar to understand simple fairness," Barnard said. "The dangers inherent in government favoring one religion are obvious."

As a side note, I did find interesting Justice Alito's comments in regard to the possibility of the "Imagine" monument in Central Park being construed as a possible "no religion" monument. Maybe construed and maybe by some. But in connection with Lennon and his song, "no religion" isn't quite as much the point as religion is the point with, say, a Ten Commandments display.



And by the way--the above pic represents an actual monument that you, too, could install at your residence or place of business. It's available at multiple websites at a reasonable cost--what price freedom of speech? So a private individual could put it on their lawn, for example, and I'd totally kick the rear of anyone who said a private individual couldn't. And any Judeo-Christian could say the same thing about my Darwin-fish bumper sticker. Right?