The cities of Duchesne and Pleasant Grove, Utah have petitioned for en banc review by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in two decisions by a 3-judge panel that largely upheld the right of members of the Summum faith to erect monuments displaying their Seven Aphorisms alongside Ten Commandments monuments in two different public parks. (See prior posting.) Yesterday's Deseret Morning News reports on the petitions filed in Summum v. Pleasant Grove City and Summum v. Duchesne City. The cities argue that the 3-judge panel was mistaken in characterizing the donated Ten Commandments monuments as private speech instead of speech by the government. They say that the panel's reasoning could could turn parks "into a cluttered junkyard of monuments contributed by all comers."
The argument that once the 10 Commandments monuments were donated, they were "government speech", is a particularly interesting one in the Duchesne City case. There the city, in an attempt to avoid Summum's request for equal treatment in a public forum, transferred the parkland under the 10 Commandments monument to private individuals.
