Supreme Court to Rule in Spring on Monuments Issue
Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 04:24 PM
by post9211
The United States Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling before next summer on a case which could have far-reaching impact on veterans memorials.Earlier this week, the VFW, along with all other major veterans organizations, filed a brief asking the court to overturn an Appeals Court decision requiring governmental bodies to accept all types of monuments. (See press release, Watch press conference )
The justices engaged in lively arguments over a small religious group's efforts to place a monument in a public park that already is home to a Ten Commandments display.
The court seemed reluctant to accept the arguments put forth by the religious group known as the Summum that once a government accepts any donations for display in a public park, it must accept all.
"I mean, you have a Statue of Liberty; do we have to have a statue of despotism? Or do we have to put any president who wants to be on Mount Rushmore?" Chief Justice John Roberts asked, acknowledging his examples might go a bit far.
Yet the court also was uncomfortable with the position of Pleasant Grove City, Utah, which rejected the Summum's request to erect a monument similar to the Ten Commandments marker that has stood in the city's Pioneer Park since 1971.
Justice David Souter wondered how the city could accept the Ten Commandments display and then say, "'We will not on identical terms take the Summum monument because we don't agree with the message...' Why isn't that a First Amendment violation?"
