June 23, 2008
On Monday, June 23, the Center for Inquiry and its affiliate, the Council for Secular Humanism, filed a brief with the Supreme Court in the case of Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, Case No. 07-665.
CFI and CSH filed their brief as
amici curiae
(or friends of the court). Because of the unusual posture of the case, CFI/CSH’s brief was filed in support of neither party. The case involves the request of Summum, a religious group, to erect a privately donated monument of Summum’s Seven Aphorisms next to a similarly sized, privately donated monument of the Ten Commandments that is located in a municipal park. After Pleasant Grove City denied Summum’s request, Summum brought a lawsuit and ultimately obtained a favorable judgment from the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. The case was decided under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment and the appellate court’s decision did not consider the implications of the Establishment Clause for Summum’s claim. A Supreme Court decision in favor of either party, the city or Summum, could be misinterpreted as suggesting that permanent freestanding religious monuments are permissible on government property.
Paul Kurtz, Chair of CFI/CSH, has observed, “Although we clearly believe that Pleasant Grove City should not have a Ten Commandments monument on public property, we do not believe the proper response to a Ten Commandments monument is to erect additional monuments setting forth the precepts of other religions.”
CFI/CSH’s brief urges the Supreme Court to craft a narrow ruling that expressly states that it does not address, and should not be interpreted as addressing, Establishment Clause issues. Such a ruling would leave open the possibility of removing the Ten Commandments monument from the municipal park in Pleasant Grove City.
CFI/CSH’s brief was authored by attorneys from the nationwide law firm of Jenner & Block, with the assistance of Ronald A. Lindsay and Derek Araujo, in-house counsel from CFI/CSH. The attorneys from Jenner & Block who worked on the brief are: Barry Levenstam, Matthew W. Alsdorf, Joshua A. Block, J. Andrew Hirth, and Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos. CFI and CSH are profoundly grateful to these attorneys, who exemplified the best traditions of the legal profession by donating their time to work on this important brief.