{"id":136,"date":"2009-02-26T10:53:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-26T10:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/02\/supreme-court-gets-it-partiall.html"},"modified":"2009-02-26T10:53:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-26T10:53:00","slug":"supreme-court-gets-it-partiall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/02\/supreme-court-gets-it-partiall.html","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Gets It Partially Right"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, Jay, the Supreme Court<\/a> got it partially right yesterday by conceding the obvious: that when a city accepts any monument from a private party and puts it up as a permanent display in a park, that represents “government speech.” It concluded that the city controls the messages it wants to convey to the public. Similarly, it recognized that there remain constraints on government speech, including the principles of equal protection and the Establishment Clause. This part of the decision was why groups like the American Humanist Association<\/a> hailed it.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There was a particularly strange section of the decision, though,
\nthat may make people wonder if the justices can tell an apple from an
\norange.  The justices claim that acceptance of a monument doesn’t
\nnecessarily mean that it embraces the same message as the donor
\nintends.  For example, they note that a monument in New York’s Central
\nPark which contains the word “Imagine” as a recognition of the late
\nJohn Lennon is susceptible to many meanings beside the one the late
\nsinger incorporated in his words.  I’ll buy that.  However, the Ten
\nCommandments aren’t the lyrics of a song; they have a well-established
\nand singular significance as the ethical and theological cornerstone of
\nJudaism and Christianity.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In addition, it is
\nclear from the concurrence by Justices Scalia and Thomas that they
\ndon’t believe Summum has any recourse under the “no establishment”
\nprinciple because this Ten Commandments monument is of the same type
\nand vintage as one which a 5-4 majority of the court upheld in Van Orden v. Perry<\/a><\/i>. 
\nI am not so sure of that–and I’m quite confident that other Fraternal
\nOrder of Eagles monuments that stand alone, not surrounded by monuments
\nof other kinds, will still be challenged as unconstitutional promotions
\nof religion.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

Indeed, this case was so
\nobviously never a “free speech” case in the first place.  It should
\nhave always been seen as the Establishment Clause case it was.<\/p>\n

To subscribe to Lynn v. Sekulow, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, Jay, the Supreme Court got it partially right yesterday by conceding the obvious: that when a city accepts any monument from a private party and puts it up as a permanent display in a park, that represents “government speech.” It concluded that the city controls the messages it wants to convey to the public.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,66],"tags":[389,74,51,73,67,72,388],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-religious-displays","tag-establishment-clause","tag-free-speech-2","tag-news","tag-pleasant-grove-city","tag-politics","tag-summum","tag-supreme-court"],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court Gets It Partially Right - Lynn v. 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An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}