Submitted to a Candid World

With poetic license regarding what constitutes “this week”…

Another year, another Supreme Court term: on November 12th, the Court heard oral arguments in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum,  in a case that promises to define the law of “public fora.” Stated simply, a minority religious sect (Summum) argues that, because the majority-Mormon Utah town allowed the erection of monuments to the Ten Commandments in a park (Pioneer Park), Summum should be allowed to place a monument to its “Seven Aphorisms,” allegedly derived from the first tablets that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai (in Summum theology, Moses conveniently smashed these tablets… the Ten Commandments were Version 2.0). Anything less – Summum argues – would be an unconstitutional limitation on the usage of the park, which it characterizes as a “public forum” open to any reasonable citizen expression.

I agree. While no doubt the case is a complicated one, the City of Pleasant Grove had a choice: (1) accept its Ten Commandments monument pursuant to a government sponsorship program (oral arg. transcript, 35-36), therefore ensuring it had total control over viewpoints expressed by monuments in the park, and risk an Establishment Clause lawsuit, or (2) put the damn thing in the park, therefore treating the park as an open forum for free expression, and risk being sued for viewpoint discrimination if it declined to place other, controversial memorials. The city chose option two in an attempt to dodge the Establishment Clause problem, and now they’re paying the price. The sum of the clauses of the First Amendment stand for this simple proposition, if anything: the state can’t favor one religion over another, and the erection of blatantly religious monuments, unless ancient indeed, surely runs afoul of this principle. We’ll have to wait until May to see if the Court agrees.

In more hilarious news, the Cincinnati Zoo, a publicly-owned institution linked with the local public school system, today sharply reversed its stated plan to offer “two-for-one” tickets to the zoo and the nearby Creation Museum. The Cincinnati Zoo’s wildlife can safely rest without fear of being prodded by “baraminologists” (read: zoologists who trace biological ancestry based on God’s “plan” for creation). Epic win.