Summum Summons Your Attention!
The Summum Pyramid, located in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Being a party to a lawsuit that will be decided by the United States Supreme Court is probably the best way an unknown religion can market itself. Yesterday, not many people knew about Summum, a religion created in 1975. But after tomorrow, more and more people will google “Summum” because tomorrow the religion will come before the Supreme Court to argue its case against Please Grove City.
Summum wants to achieve the same status that Christianity has. It petitioned to the city of Please Grove to allow it to erect a monument commemorating its Seven Aphorisms in the same park where a Ten Commandments monolith was located. The city responded, “Thanks, but No Thanks.” Actually, the city was more diplomatic than that. It rejected Summum’s petition because it was not “directly relate[d] to the history of Pleasant Grove” or “donated by groups with long-standing ties to the Pleasant Grove community.” Summum sued the city for abridging its free speech rights.
The Court decision will determine much more than whether to allow an unknown religion its philosophy to park-goers. The Court will decide whether a monument donated by a private party for public display becomes the government’s speech or remain the private speech of the donor. If the speech becomes the government’s speech, the city does not have to maintain viewpoint neutrality. It has the freedom choose a message that it considers more favorable. If the speech remains the private speech of the donor, then the city’s rejection of the Seven Aphorisms would be considered content-based discrimination, which is subject to strict scrutiny. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals held in favor of Summum stating that the Seven Aphorisms monument would be a private speech displayed in a public forum and that the city’s reason for rejecting the monument was not a compelling interest. Because this holding is contrary to holdings of other circuits, Supreme Court’s decision will hopefully clarify the government speech doctrine.
Regardless of the outcome of the Court’s decision, Summum would have benefited in its “marketing” effort. Even if the Court gives the city the right to reject the Seven Aphorisms monument, the unfamiliar religious organization can still display it on its private property. However, if the Court requires the city to display the Seven Aphorisms, then does a city become a cheap advertising firm where everything that is sent its way has to be publically displayed?
Recent Comments