WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court warily confronted a case Wednesday that mixes limits on free speech with issues of church-state separation.
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. 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.
The Summum said, and a federal appeals court agreed, that Pleasant Grove can’t allow some donations in a public park and reject others.
Pleasant Grove officials are supported by federal, state and city governments, plus veterans organizations.
They worry that a ruling for the Summum would allow almost anyone to erect a monument in a public park, including people with hateful points of view, or lead to the removal of war memorials and other long- standing displays.
The Associated Press
