Editors' Note: Every month, Townhall Magazine highlights some of the outstanding blogs written by users in our community. The following is an entry from Randy DeSoto and appears in the May issue of Townhall Magazine.
Lady Liberty needn’t fear a Statue of Tyranny will soon be cozying up next to her any time soon. The
Supreme Court, in a unanimous 9-0 decision, ruled that governments can choose which monuments
they will display on public lands, including those with religious content like the Ten Commandments,
without being forced to also display monuments from those with differing views.
The case, Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, wound its way to the Supreme Court last fall after
the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the religious group Summum. The group sued two communities
in Utah, demanding that the communities accept and display monuments of their Seven Aphorisms
next to donated monuments of the Ten Commandments currently in the towns’ public parks. The
Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Summum, stating that, if communities wanted to display the Ten
Commandments or similar monuments, they must be willing to accept all comers.
Atheist groups loved this ruling, because it would have the likely effect of forcing the removal of all
monuments with religious content. In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled in Van Orden v. Perry, that the
Ten Commandments are a part of the nation’s religious heritage and legal tradition and have been vital
in shaping United States culture; therefore, Texas was within its purview to include the monument on
its Statehouse grounds.
The Supreme Court, in Summum, has now added to its 2005 Texas Statehouse ruling, providing
that not only can governments display the Ten Commandments and other monuments with religious
content, they can choose which displays will go on public property and which will not—as they always
have. This power does not impinge on peoples’ First Amendment free speech rights: They are free to
say and write about what they want and assemble and advocate and protest in public places, including
city parks; they just don’t have the power to force governments to accept permanent displays. The
Court added that if the government literally had to accept and accommodate all viewpoints as being
equal, it would cease to be able to function.