SUPREME COURT WILL DECIDE ON MONUMENTS ALLOWED ON PUBLIC PROPERTY

A major Supreme Court case will be heard tomorrow.  The New York Times carries the story, and the Family Research Council summarizes:

In the small Utah town of Pleasant Grove, a local battle over free speech has erupted into a  nationwide controversy over which monuments are welcome on government property. In Pleasant Grove, a large piece of red granite inscribed with the Ten Commandments has stood in a public park for more than three decades. The Summum religious cult believes it should be equally free to erect a monument to its faith and tried to donate a monument of comparable size to the city. When Pleasant Grove refused, a lawsuit followed.

Tomorrow, the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh whether the First Amendment entitles every group to erect a monument on government property. The Liberty Counsel, which is defending the town, argues that a ruling in the Summums' favor would result in something like a Fairness

Doctrine for statues. In other words, where there is a monument to Christianity, the parks would be forced to welcome a second statue to atheism. "Affirming the [lower court] decision would... clutter public parks across the nation with offensive nonsense," the town told the New York Times. As the oral arguments begin Wednesday, we urge the court to protect American heritage rather than dilute it by its own display of political correctness.

The New York Times article describes the beliefs of the Summum religion as follows:

Followers of Summum believe that Moses received two sets of tablets on Mount Sinai and that the Ten Commandments were on the second set. The aphorisms were on the first one.

“When Moses came down from the mountain the first time, he brought the principles of creation,” Mr. Temu said. “But he saw the people weren’t ready for them, so he threw them on the ground and destroyed them.”

Summum’s founder, Corky Ra, says he learned the aphorisms during a series of telepathic encounters with divine beings he called Summa Individuals.