Unanimous Ruling Upholds Pleasant Grove's Prerogative to Display Donated Ten Commandments Monument while Rejecting Monument Donation from Summum Faith Adherents

In an opinion issued today in Pleasant Grove v. Summum, the Supreme Court accepted the characterization of the original monument display in the city's Pioneer Park as government speech and therefore upheld as constitutionally unobjectionable the decision of the city government to reject the subsequently proffered monument setting forth the Seven Aphorisms of Summum, a small religious sect. Justice Alito wrote the opinion for the Court with concurrences filed by Justices Stevens, Scalia and Breyer. Justice Souter concurred only in the result.A brief summary of  the opinion appears on Scotusblog.

JFB