{"id":288,"date":"2009-02-28T14:09:08","date_gmt":"2009-02-28T21:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=288"},"modified":"2009-11-21T21:32:59","modified_gmt":"2009-11-22T05:32:59","slug":"supreme-court-rules-on-summum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/28\/supreme-court-rules-on-summum\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Rules on Summum"},"content":{"rendered":"

An interesting case was decided at the Supreme Court earlier this week.\u00a0 Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum<\/a><\/em> had centered on Summum’s contention that since the city had erected a Ten Commandments on public property, they were bound to erect Summum’s “Seven Aphorisms<\/a>” as well.\u00a0 The Supreme Court ruled–unanimously–against Summum.\u00a0 The case was litigated on free speech grounds, and Summum has indicated they will refile the case on church\/state separation grounds.<\/p>\n

The case is interesting because of its implications for religious freedom in the military.\u00a0 One response to some complaints of “entanglement” with religion in the military has been the “all or none” solution.\u00a0 That is, the military must allow and support all religious persuasions or it must do so for none.\u00a0 Because of the logistical complexities of the former, the latter is often the course chosen (as is probably the intent of those who file such complaints).\u00a0 While this specific case was litigated only on free speech grounds, its implications for the “all or none” argument are significant.<\/p>\n

Some have indicated that when organizations\u00a0sue the government over religion,\u00a0it is a “win-win” for opponents of religious interaction with government.\u00a0\u00a0Summum had nothing to lose.\u00a0 If they won, they would have opened the door for “competing” displays across the country.\u00a0 When they lost, some\u00a0have claimed the Supreme Court handed them the perfect legal argument for a violation of the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

Perhaps more importantly, many similar cases never make it to the Supreme Court, or to any court at all.\u00a0\u00a0Many municipalities are unwilling or unable to wage the financial battle required, and so give in to the litigious demands of these organizations–even if the government would have prevailed.<\/p>\n

The city will now be forced to defend itself against a church\/state separation case, in which Summum will claim that by erecting a Ten Commandments monument it has “established” a religion.\u00a0 Notably, the Supreme Court may not completely agree.\u00a0 Justices Scalia and Thomas wrote a\u00a0concurrence with this case that\u00a0emphasized that the\u00a0existing\u00a0Ten Commandments monument does not<\/em> violate “so-called ‘wall of separation between church and State'”:<\/p>\n

The city ought not fear that today’s victory has propelled it from the Free Speech Clause frying pan into the Establishment Clause fire.\u00a0 Contrary to respondent\u2019s intimations, there are very good reasons to be confident that the park displays do not violate any<\/em> part of the First Amendment…<\/p>\n

The city can safely exhale. Its residents and visitors can now return to enjoying Pioneer Park\u2019s wishing well, its historic granary\u2014and, yes, even its Ten Commandments monument\u2014without fear that they are complicit in an establishment of religion. (emphasis original)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even so, as is often the case, Summum has nothing to lose.<\/p>\n

The Religion Clause covers this<\/a> as well as the (sometimes surprising)\u00a0reactions<\/a> of various organizations to the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interesting case was decided at the Supreme Court earlier this week.\u00a0 Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum had centered on Summum’s contention that since the city had erected a Ten Commandments on public property, they were bound to erect Summum’s “Seven Aphorisms” as well.\u00a0 The Supreme Court ruled–unanimously–against Summum.\u00a0 The case was litigated on free speech grounds, and Summum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4,2,10],"class_list":["post-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-churchandstate","tag-military","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}