Welcome sports fans to another episode of Full Court Press!
They say never to talk about politics or religion, that you’ll just lose friends… but we here at USDemocrazy are going after both! In a recent Supreme Court ruling, Pleasant Grove City v. Summum (07-665), Justice Alito writes about the TEN COMMANDMENTS! (Commandment number 11: Thou shalt be very careful when dealing with the Ten Commandments.)
He handed down an opinion that discusses free speech, a monument in Pleasant Grove City, Utah and those commanding Commandments. Head over to the NY Times to get the general gist of the case.
“Hold on!” you might say. Doesn’t that conflict with some kind of church and state and free speech and Charleton Heston kind of thing? Well SCOTUS blog breaks down the thought process pretty nicely:
“Government policy on placement of permanent markets [they're refering to a monument here] in a public park is, constitutionally speaking, a form of government speech [The monument isn't actually speaking... he's talking about what is being written on the monument] so there is no Free Speech Clause issue when a Ten Commandments monument [oh, THAT'S what is written on the monument] is accepted but a monument to a different religion is excluded. ” (Okay that is alot to chew on there… still pretty important stuff.)
Check out all of SCOTUS blog’s discussion on the case and the tight rope act of walking the Free Speech Clause and the Establishment Clause here! But more importantly, Justice Alito references John Lennon in the court opinion! The BLT has the scoop on that here!
