Local atheists should be heartened by Feb. 25’s unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision in Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, holding that the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause did not require municipal acceptance of a monument sponsored by a “religious” group for placement in a public park merely because a Ten Commandments monument already enjoyed such location.

In so doing, the court distinguished between permanent monuments (which monopolize a space) versus temporary displays (which do not), and between transient “public” speech (in demonstrations, rallies, parades, etc.) versus “government” speech (which is generally not subject to First Amendment free speech constraints.

However, writing for the court, Justice Alito emphasized that: “This does not mean that there are no constraints on government speech.  For example, government speech must comport with the Establishment Clause.”  This is the very legal principal upon which Justice O’Connor relied in Turner last year, which Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland expressly disputed and publicly dismissed on last Aug. 4, and which Rowland arrogantly disregards every time she offers a sectarian invocation at a public hearing.

As Justices Stevens and Ginzburg concurred, “even if the Free Speech Clause neither restricts nor protects government speech, government speakers are bound by the Constitution’s other proscriptions, including those supplied by the Establishment and Equal Protection Clauses.”  By expressly endorsing and effectively discriminating in favor of evangelical Christianity, Rowland’s sectarian invocations violate both clauses, as well as Article II, Section 4, of the Colorado Constitution she is sworn to uphold.

While Justices Scalia and Thomas opined that the city’s Ten Commandments monument would likely have survived an Establishment Clause challenge in light of analogous facts in Van Orden v. Perry, more relevant locally is McCreary County v. ACLU, wherein elected officials’ protestations of “secular purpose” in advancing their religious message were held to be a “sham.”

BILL HUGENBERG
Grand Junction

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