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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 20408
[Legal]
Date Posted:
2/25/2009
2:22:05 pm EST
Wvox Stats
Views: 7,808
RSS: 17,281
Comments: 16
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Justices Rule Sect Cannot Force Placing Of Monument
Author: David Stout Source: New York Times
Title: JUSTICES RULE SECT CANNOT FORCE PLACING OF MONUMENT
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.
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Community Thoughts: There are 16 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Constitutional Oath Obligations, And Legal Process | Feb 26th. at 2:35:40 pm EST
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Terry (Irvington, Virginia) - Email Me
The following discussion of a recent libel case overlaps the issues of this and many other cases, not on superficial focus, but on how legal process can often result in Constitutionally deficient outcomes, or involve and excuse judicial bias:
[Web LINK]
The Volokh law blog is one of the leading such resources of its type in our country. The core parties to that thread are 3 lawyers, two noted as leading scholars, and a non-lawyer Constitutional scholar who heads a leading public education project (Jon Roland at Constitution.org) .
Notably, the practice of US courts to ignore serious Constitutional issues unless raised by litigant counsel may well violate oaths of office for judges and other government officials, when it leads to outcomes that fly in the face of Constitutional law. That certainly appears true in this monument case, where the court at most casts casual asides about how the preexisting religious stone carving lacks legitimate legal standing to remain where it is. Substantive due process requires courts attempting to produce just results, whereas the procedural due process Bush and many lawyers favor pretends justice is served by courts playing their own procedural games, even if producing unjust or Constitutionally deficient or defective results. As this debate illustrates, courts assuming a narrow focus and generally ignoring major relevant issues many litigants prefer to sidestep is an issue of arbitrary legal practice chosen for judicial convenience, and not an issue of Constitutional or statutory law or legal obligation.
Also notable in this legal process debate is an all too common issue, that in large part explains why Simpson v Chesterfield was decided so differently from Wynne v Great Falls before the same 4th Circuit, both cases of pagans discriminated against with public meetings opened with prayers from government chosen and sponsored speakers. One of those cases appears to have drawn somewhat honest judges, whereas the other before the same Appellate court found 2 of 3 judges trying to lead a poorly prepared county attorney to hand the court procedural excuses to prop up predecided positions not entirely supported by Constitutional law or any honest and accurate finding of fact.
While the issues of a Constitutional oath for government officials, including police and many bureaucrats and elected officials, to proactively support and defend our Constitution rather than passively focus only on narrow aspects when forced to do so, can be viewed in many ways without finding malice to circumvent the rule of law, those latter cases of judicial bias are overdue to find strong remedies short of 2nd Amendment last resort violence for reversing intentional court abuses and removing corrupt judges from the bench.
Our Constitution is laden with specific cases where judicial convenience is clearly intended to be secondary to upholding citizen rights and limits on government to defined duties and powers, by design of our Founding Fathers. Current legal practice often reverses those priorities, and invites consideration of how to restore the original intent and hold government agents in all branches and levels of government to the rule of law.
With some courts suspending civil cases completely and dismissing many major felonies for lack of speedy trials due to budget shortfalls, these issues of how to balance judicial expediency with ideals of justice and equity are now more problematic than ever.
Find More info -- HERE
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| During The Christmas Season..... | Feb 26th. at 12:11:06 pm EST
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Scrybe (Warren, Pennsylvania) - Email Me
.....of 2007, a couple pagans from Olean, New York were allowed to place a pent next to a nativity scene on a piece of public property. Yes, they were challenged, but they won as it was "public property".
I have a photo of the pent in my myspace profile photo page. Just type in the search window for mysticscrybe. I feel the Summum church should keep trying to place a monument.
Scrybe
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| IT Is Interesting To | Feb 26th. at 11:30:23 am EST
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Grumpy Raven (Eagle, Colorado) - Email Me
juxtapose this article with the "Case for Civil Religion" article. The town government in this case apparently thinks that the Ten Commandments have historically informed civic life (otherwise they would have to remove them.) This is where "civil religion" and a specific religion get mixed up. Many Christians continually want to link our form of government to the Judeo-Christian tradition and thereby dominate the discourse about what it means to be an American. If they would limit their government - sponsored statements to the ideas that are part of universal human morality, it might be less objectionable. However, one of the Ten Commandments is "Thou shalt have no other gods before me", which is a religious statement specific to the Abrahamic religions. It's hard to imagine that the Supreme Court can't make this distiction, though this case wasn't the right venue.
As a previous poster pointed out, many of our ideas about came from the pagan Greeks. Come to think of it, I've seldom seen an objection to a statue of a Greek deity in a public context.
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| (none) | Feb 26th. at 10:54:51 am EST
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Llunmere (Germantown Hills, Illinois) - Email Me
Or... maybe some brazen individuals could start a protest campaign that imitates the right-wing: Like Democracy? Thank a Pagan.
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| (none) | Feb 26th. at 10:52:38 am EST
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Llunmere (Germantown Hills, Illinois) - Email Me
So this is why all states should propose amendments to their state constitutions to the tune of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.
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| This Is What. . . | Feb 26th. at 10:30:50 am EST
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Dynnys Derwydd (Lubbock, Texas) - Email Me
. . .fundamentalists and evangelicals have been wanting for years, even before the Shrub got elected.
I blame this all on the late, and not too lamented, Jerry Falwell who helped take the Republican Party from a Constitutional and fiscally conservative party to one controlled by Christian ,and other social, conservatives.
That and an inadequate educational system which failed to point out that the original colonists from England weren't Puritans, but people who were looking for a new life; that the ideals of republic, res publica, and democracy were Pagan ideals; even the ideal of "equality under law" was first seen in Pagan Athens, the birthplace of democracy.
Another problem, from someone who has read the Christian Bible from beginning to end, is that most Christians don't live up to the ideals of their Savior; they judge and condemn others; expound upon certain Judaic laws, all the while ignoring others, et cetera ad nauseum.
I have met some Christians who earnestly try to live up the teachings of Yeshua, and even they look on with regret the actions of their fellows.
Lastly, while I do see the first amendment as giving freedom of religion, not from it, I must say that the actions of the Supreme Court lately seems more a promotion of certain religious beliefs, which is unconstitutional. If a public park cannot have monuments to a myriad of religious beliefs, then a public park should not have monuments to any religious ideals.
Gnothi Seauton
honi soit qui mal y pense,
Dynnys Derwydd
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| Just Another Way Of Saying That Creedism Is... | Feb 26th. at 9:36:09 am EST
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karrie9 (Kenosha, Wisconsin) - Email Me - Web
...officially sanctioned by way of what they don't do -- can't make them put up monuments representing from other religions.
...But that's no Christian Only, oh no, no, no, no. Hah!
They shouldn't call up (start) what they can't put down (end well) .
Meanwhile, various numbers Pagan are growing...it'll be interesting to see what happens to faith-based tyranny of the majority then.
And for Christians, it'll be interesting to see how one group of denominations (and the more uber Evangelicals at that) continues to try to hold onto dominance then.
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| Our Country Is Bias | Feb 25th. at 11:13:15 pm EST
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super whuffo (Spring City, Tennessee) - Email Me
Our country is bias and supports only one religion, and this religion is very strange to those who have been brought up under it and then studied it. My videos on YouTube explore this problem. If you are interested please search YouTube for superwhuffo1
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| Neither One Should Be There. | Feb 25th. at 8:36:39 pm EST
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
I feel that if the ten commandments farce can stand there, the group should be able to put a monument next to it. Apparently, since this is not the case, we now have a state sanctioned religion?
That's sure what it looks like to me.
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| Too Optimistic | Feb 25th. at 8:16:50 pm EST
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Embreis (Athens, Georgia) - Email Me
Draken, I'm afraid "final" is way too optimistic.
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| ... | Feb 25th. at 6:46:45 pm EST
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Draken (Bronx, New York) - Email Me - Web
Ahh, the final vestiges of the illegal reign of Chimpy McFlightsuit shows itself.
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| A Point Some People Are Missing | Feb 25th. at 4:14:38 pm EST
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Embreis (Athens, Georgia) - Email Me
Most lawsuits regarding public displays turn on the establishment clause of the Constitution, but in this case, neither party wanted to make this an establishment clause case. Summum's wanted to get their monument erected. A ruling that the park was a public forum might not have gotten that, because the city could have removed the existing monument in order to avoid having a public forum. So they came up with a novel argument which avoided the religion clauses entirely and argued the case on free speech grounds.
The city might have defended the case on the grounds that it was really an establishment clause case, but what would that get them?
The result was an absurd case which seems to have produced an absurd ruling, but Summum is as much to blame as anyone else.
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| "the Power Of Government To Express Itself," | Feb 25th. at 4:01:19 pm EST
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Ursyl (Murrysville, Pennsylvania) - Email Me
I don't recall any such "right" of the government in the Constitution.
The entire point of the Bill of Rights is to protect citizens FROM the government's potential abuse, not the other way around.
From the article:
"The core issue is not private speech in a public forum but, rather, the power of government to express itself, in this case by selecting which monuments to have in a public park, Justice Alito wrote.
“The Free Speech Clause restricts government regulation of private speech,” Justice Alito noted. “It does not regulate government speech.” "
The hell it doesn't!
Does anyone else find this exactly bass-ackwards? or is it just me?
And since when does the First Amendment give a government entity the right to favor or endorse one religion over any other?
Seems to me that that is precisely what the First Amendment expressly FORBIDS.
What has Alito been smoking?
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| Half Right | Feb 25th. at 3:57:08 pm EST
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Terry (Irvington, Virginia) - Email Me
The court seems to have decided this one half-right. Government has some rights to create speech that's not an open public free speech zone, but in those cases, it's not entitled to play religious favorites. If it opens a public space to "strict scrutiny" speech, whether religious, political, or equivalents, then it has to remain content neutral to all comers, and give equal footing to Vatican or LDS content as to Church of the Subgenius or an artist advocating turning munitions into peace sculptures. This case seems correct in that usually such private speech zones are temporary, whereas "permanent" speech inherently assumes an element of government selection and endorsement.
For a unanimous concurrence, this case generated more separate opinions from individual Justices (five of them) than many deeply split decisions.
[Web LINK]
The court danced around the issues of biased and discriminatory government content criteria, and accepted a devious ploy the Utah city defendant constructed in recent official policy to pretend favoring LDS and disfavoring other churches or legal equivalents can be purely historic or civic in nature, rather than blatant Establishment non-neutrality. The court effectively endorsed and wore blinders to gross defects where the
City explained that it "limited Park monuments to those either directly related to the City’s history or donated by groups with long standing community ties." This flies in the face of post-14th Amendment jurisprudence that requires equal protections of law attach strict scrutiny criteria like religion or ethnicity based on any one or more now living persons, and not historic, foreign, or potential members of any given protected class entitled to equal treatment under our law.
Justice Stevens opined, "I think the reasons justifying the city’s refusal would have been equally valid if its acceptance of the monument, instead of being characterized as 'government speech,' had merely been deemed an implicit endorsement of the donor’s message." In a display with one or few religious elements, Stevens' perspective seems quite valid, though the court somehow evaded extending that to find the existing (editorial variant of a) Ten Commandments stone monstrosity outside the limits it discussed for how government speech does have limits as to what content is in or out of legal bounds. Souter went on to discuss how messy those issues can be, but only in general terms, rather than his sometimes chastisement of fellow Justices for mistaken or malicious subversion of their duties to apply honest and accurate findings of legal fact to their interpretation of law.
Whether for lack of legal arguments by the Summum Plaintiffs for an alternative remedy of denying the city authority to place a religious endorsement of LDS's version of Ten Commandments absent a true rather than pretend historic context, or because of Bush regime infestation of the top court with rabid fundy black robed lynchmen masquerading as if Justices, this decision appears to reach a wrong result while offering a political platform to dance around the proper issues of government and private spaces, content selection or neutrality, and time as one of the distinguishing criteria. Souter's position almost says further work on complex balancing issues is needed, while Stevens almost asks for someone to please bring a case that simply challenges the city's endorsement of select religion in violation of a different prong of the 1st Amendment than this case visited.
Unfortunately, based on ages and medical issues of existing Justices, it's likely 2 SCOTUS seats now generally favorable to 1st Amendment rights will be vacated sooner than 1 seat hostile towards the Constitution as amended and applied based on contemporary accurate findings of fact (noting Scalia's "originalist" dogma applies a psychotic notion that legal fact is fixated circa 1790 for current decisions) . Let's hope that Obama's nominations and near future Senate reviews bring us a more effective top court before a needed further case revisits and clarifies these issues.
Find More info -- HERE
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| Told You So | Feb 25th. at 3:44:15 pm EST
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Orion 6Xray (Park City, Kentucky) - Email Me - Web
Today the Supremes tell us that the displaying the Ten Commandments is government speech.
All we need now is a Holy Emperor--
and family-values, war-on-terror, torture-loving Christian Conservatives will have secured the Dark Age they have been voting in favor of ever since 1797.
These are dark times, indeed.
— Klem, Westhampton
Couldn't say it any better myself......
Find More info -- HERE
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