Supreme Court ruling, and as a non-lawyer, I am interpreting this to mean the FSM is getting the shaft and there will not be statues of his noodly appendages in a public square near you any time soon:
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday, in one of the most closely watched free speech decisions in years, that a tiny religious sect could not force a Utah city to let it erect a monument to its faith in a public park.
The fact that there is already a Ten Commandments monument in the park in Pleasant Grove City does not mean that city officials must also allow the religious group called Summum to place a monument there to the Seven Aphorisms of its faith, the justices ruled.
Anyone with legal training want to read the ruling and decipher that for us rubes?
Also, ACTIVIST JUDGES!
random asshole
Head on over to Daily Kos. There’s a lengthy post about it on the front page.
Dave
I read that post and was more confused after I read it.
The Other Steve
It goes back to something my mother once said.
Just because your friend jumped off a cliff doesn’t mean you have to.
Just Some Fuckhead
Translation: Our Judeo-Christian heritage has been protected from the infidels.
SGEW
SCOTUSblog covers this admirably here and here.
Takeaway: Free speech is not violated when said speech is governmental in nature (i.e., the government has the right to limit its own "speech"). The Establishment Clause was not at issue (!).
Also: Fuck Scalia, again.
Trollhattan
This could endanger the Festivus pole’s reappearence in the Washington State Capitol!
Slack slack
kid bitzer
man, this whole invention of "governmental speech" just seems like the wrong direction to go, altogether.
c u n d gulag
It’s simple: Don’t put up regious statues, like one representing the 10 Commandmens, in the first place.
This way, when, in my new religion, my followers want to hang the largest of my 95 feces, you won’t be required to break health codes to put it up.
thefncrow
I’ve only picked up bits about the decision, but in short, the suit was challenging Utah to let the other religious group build a monument. So, the question was, is the 10 Commandments monument:
a) a privately owned monument displayed on public land, meaning that the government is providing a public forum and space would be required to be made available for other groups to display their own creations(as a denial based on what the monument is would constitute a denial of free speech based on the content of said speech), or
b) actually government speech, meaning that there’s no availability for other groups, and no need to allow these people space for their own monument, but making the monument now potentially open to Establishment Clause claims based on the government’s advancement of religion.
The court settled on B, and since the case was actually about the religious group wanting space in a public forum, that settles the issue.
Of course, there could be new constitutional issues raised now that the monument was declared government speech, based on an Establishment Clause violation, but this wasn’t at issue in the current case.
Lavocat
This will likely turn out to be a seminal case with regard to the interrelationship of free speech and the establishment clause. This case was actually quite complex from beginning to end and its a fascinating read insofar as the justices seem to be all over the map on this one.
Frankly, I think it was a foregone conclusion, though it raised some extremely interesting questions about the intricacies of the First Amendment.
rumpole
There are two things going on. The first is common sense. How do you stop every guy from being allowed to erect statues to the Church of the Fonz (not that he doesn’t deserve them) when cities put up or allow other displays? None of them think that should happen. That’s the practical problem.
The theory problem is that there are a lot of different ways to get to that answer, and when opinions fracture that badly it’s tough to distill any principle of controlling law. What you have to do instead is read that case with an eye towards the next one, and figure out how you’re going to get five votes for your position. In this case, the winning side got a lot of votes, but for completely different reasons. As precedent, it’s not terribly helpful.
Leo
This is the key fact, I think. If you want to understand what happened in this case you need to go back and read the establishment clause cases the Court references, because they’re the ones that really grapple with the issue. The free speech theory relied on in this case seems like it was doomed from the start.
ricky
"Build it and he will come" my vision said. Well, if He can’t impress an aging group of robe wearing appointees of second rate Presidents, He’s gonna be al dente instead of almighty from now on. "It’s back in the pesto sauce for you, my friend. You ani’t even near Kansas anymore. " Tasty.
syl
I’m pretty sure that the Summum made a tactical decision not to actually raise an establishment clause issue, only a public forum issue, . But I could be wrong, this case is really weird and makes me go cross-eyed.
Napoleon
That is the first thing I thought. The decision seems to make no sense. How is this not an establishment case.
Phoebe
I don’t even get the free speech issue. A "public park" means government owned land, and so the government decides what goes up. The end. They can put up a bunch of orange banners by the Christo people, or whatever. They don’t have to put up your thing, religious or otherwise.
I guess the "public" bit comes in because it means you can stand there and babble about your religion or whatever it is you want to free-speech on about, but make people put up a monument? wtf?
Leo
Reading the opinion quickly, it seems like there was an establishment clause case right on point holding for the city. So the religious group presumably made a tactical choice not to even suggest that line of reasoning because they knew they’d lose.
Still, very strange choice by the parties, leading to a very odd decision by the Court.
kindness
So what am I going to do with this 20′ bronze Flying Spaghetti Monster statue I was all set to donate & install in my local park? Maybe if I etched the 10 Commandments in really small in the pedestal they’d take it?!?
ricky
kindness @ 18
Just plant a little bamboo around it and befuddle the anthopologists who dig it out 2,000 years from now when civilization reemerges after the crash.
amorphous
Oh that wacky Scaliathomas. How on Earth are those two allowed to be considered among our nations top nine Constitutional experts?
RP0806
I’m pretty sure that the Summum made a tactical decision not to actually raise an establishment clause issue, only a public forum issue, . But I could be wrong, this case is really weird and makes me go cross-eyed.
That’s exactly right. If they’d brought an establishment clause claim, the only remedy they could have requested was for the city to take down the 10 commandments. By bringing it as a free speech claim, they could demand to have equal time/space for their speech.
Personally, I can’t see how this doesn’t violate the establishment clause, so I wish they’d taken that approach from the beginning.
Brachiator
Supreme Court ruling, and as a non-lawyer, I am interpreting this to mean the FSM is getting the shaft and there will not be statues of his noodly appendages in a public square near you any time soon.
I don’t see any particular free speech issue here, although I don’t see that Justice Alito’s suff about "selective receptivity" is a strong legal principle (although it is pragmatic).
As rumpole noted above, just because you worship the Fonz does not mean that you automatically get to put up a statue to him in the park. The idea that every fatuous idea or belief that everyone has must be acknowledged by everyone is ridiculous. Handing out leaflets or preaching in the park is just not the same thing as everyone being able to set up a shrine in a public place.
OT but OT, the more serious free speech issue is the continuing collapse of the newspaper industry:
I know that people like to talk about getting their news from the Intertubes, but you still have to have original news providers, and the fewer that exist — or survive — the greater the danger to a functioning democracy.
And the greater the risk that you end up with organizations like Faux News or, increasingly, the AP, pretending to be news providers while pushing a narrow ideological agenda.
joe from Lowell
Hold it: did the United States Supreme Court just rule that placing monuments in public spaces is "government speech" subject to the Establishment Clause?
Because I’m pretty sure that would mean they can’t let people put up religious monuments anymore.
Incertus
Maybe I’m a bit cynical here, but I read this as "some religions are more equal than others."
Zifnab
The ruling rests somewhat heavily on Van Orden v. Perry (2005) by declaring the Ten Commandments monument a "historical monument" rather than a "religious monument". This sidesteps the Establishment Clause (although not by all that much, in my opinion).
The bigger question revolved around private speech versus government speech. The argument was that because the park was public and the monument was permanent, the presence of a monument constituted "government speech". Previous rulings declared that government speech was unrestricted. Since this was government speech and government gets to say what it wants and since this was a "historical" statement and not a "religious" statement, the city was not obligated to display both monuments.
At least, that’s what I got out of it.
And, yes, this does seem to indicate that the FSM is basically screwed until we can find a government official willing to speak on its behalf.
Zifnab
@Incertus: More like "some religions are more historical than others".
amorphous
@Zifnab:
Fixed and Scalia’d
b-psycho
How the hell can the government have speech rights?
Furthermore, if they do, then doesn’t that logically imply that there’s chance they’re saying something w/ their choice of monuments beyond "this is what would fit" or "we see these as art, nothing more"?
Zifnab
@b-psycho:
The government says things. It says things like "Be cool, stay in school" and "Only you can prevent Forest Fires" and "Buy American". This isn’t President Obama speaking or Senator McConnell speaking or Justice Roberts speaking. This is the standing verbal position of the US Government as a governing entity.
So there is a question of what the government is allowed to say. If the government puts out a warning that – erroneously – declares Yo-play yogurt gives you cancer, Yo-play has grounds to sue for libel. That couldn’t happen if the government couldn’t "speak". If the Senate declares Christianity to be the one true world religion, that’s a violation of the establishment clause. You can’t sue Harry Reid or Mitch McConnell for saying, "Jesus is the best", but you can sue the US Government if the statement becomes government doctrine.
gopher2b
@Napoleon:
Because the parties didn’t make it an issue. It appears to have already been litigated (although I didn’t read the underlying decisions).
This case was pretty straightforward. When a government rejects a donated monument is it exercising its free speech rights or regulating private speech unconstitutionally. Because the "donor" reqlinquishes his or her rights over the monument once its donated, and the government chooses what stays in the park FOREVER, its government speech.
I doubt this case will have much consequences beyond the parties and a few loonies. The Establishment clause issue is far more interesting (but not at issue here).
gopher2b
@gopher2b:
Said better:
A court will only give the relief that is asked for because it needs a dispute. If the plaintiff isn’t asking the 10 Commandments be removed, and the defendant isn’t refusing to move it, the Court cannot unilaterally decide to take up the cause.
Here, the plaintiff asked to put their monument in and claimed the government was denying them free speech rights by refusing when an opposing viewpoint was present in the park. (nothing to do with religion; it could be a "pro fire" monument in response to a firemen memorial). The Court held that this is not regulation of private speech because the "speaking" is the Government’s, not the citizen.
If these people wanted to go into the park, stand by the Ten Commandments, and say all the reasons their religion was better and the park removed them then it would be different.
gopher2b
Actually, this probably isn’t true because the government (federal) is immune from almost all lawsuits due to its sovereign immunity. If your city says something about you though….sue their ass off.
grimc
@Brachiator:
Having lived in SF for several years not too long ago, I can tell you that the Chronicle is a horrible newspaper. It has some good writers, to be sure, but overall it’s a laughable rag when compared to other major city dailies. The first section is mostly mattress ads, and what news there is is little more than whatever they grabbed off the wire.
I think it’s problem was that it saw itself as primarily a city daily, and SF isn’t that big a city.
dmbeaster
Key to this understanding case was that the 10th Circuit blew it and found for Summum, which is why the Supreme court took the case and reversed. All that the case represents is getting rid of a stupid precedent.
The logic of the Summum position is weird — Free Speech requires the government to accept your own monuments concerning your religion because another monument with the Ten Commandments is in the park? This is a use of "free speech" argument trumpeted by religious zealots — you are stiffling my free speech if you do not let me promote my own religion in every possible way! Another variation is that teaching science which offends my religion allegedly violates my free speech.
None of this logic makes much sense, but as law the idea is currently dead. Not so prior to the reversal of the 10th Circuit decision.
I assume Summum did not argue Establishment Clause issues since that would cut against their own goal — erecting a religious monument in the park. Displays of the Ten Commandments are not automatically a violation — it depends on the context and situation.
Comrade Darkness
@Incertus: More like "some religions are more historical than others".
The Pagans win!
joeyess
It means that this is a Christian Nation and don’t you fucking forget it!
Hedley Lamarr
Ten C’s rule!
Next they came for the atheists…
Brachiator
@grimc:
My original point stands. If the Chronicle dies, it can’t get better. And the fewer news outlets, even crappy ones, the harder it will be for people to evaluate the information being offered to them.
My post noted that Seattle Post-Intelligencer, another Hearst property, may die along with the Chronicle. Both dailies in Philadelphia recently filed for bankruptcy protection. How large does a city have to be before it "deserves" a newspaper?
Maybe Washington, D.C. is too small to have a newspaper (after all, who needs to cover the Congress). Here’s the latest:
Maybe someone can install a monument to dead newspaper companies in a park somewhere.
Just Some Fuckhead
Don’t we have one fucking paper in this country that’s too big to fail? USA Today maybe?
Phoebe
An establishment clause beef would not have helped them make the city put their statue in the park, it would have – if successful – made the city take the Xian one down.
This gambit seems to have been based on what is essentially some kind of fairness doctrine theory, and I can’t believe it even won in the lower court.