(CNSNews.com) – A group founded by a former member of the Mormon Church that blends the ancient Egyptian rite of mummification, Gnostic Christianity and New Age philosophy will have its day in court – the U.S. Supreme Court -- on Wednesday.
Salt Lake City-based Summum filed suit after the city of Pleasant Grove, Utah, refused its request to erect a monument depicting its “Seven Aphorisms” in a park that contains a monument featuring the Ten Commandments, which was erected by the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1971.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2007 that the city had violated the group’s free-speech rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, paving the way for the nation’s highest court to hear the case next week.
On Thursday, the liberal American Constitution Society for Law and Policy held a panel discussion of the Pleasant Grove v. Summum case at the National Press Club, with panelists sparring on the merits of case.
“The government can’t accept one monument and reject another,” Daniel Mach, director of litigation for the program on freedom of religion and belief at the American Civil Liberties Union, said at the discussion. “It is a free-speech issue, but what is looming in the background is the Establishment Clause.”
The panelists seemed to agree that the Establishment Clause -- “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”-- is not part of the case the court will rule on next week.
But liberal attorneys argued that because Pleasant Grove claims that its own free speech rights are being violated – since it has adopted the Ten Commandments monument as its own -- the clause should come into play.
Robert Ritter, a self-described secular humanist and attorney with the Appignani Humanist Legal Center, said he believed the case should involve the Establishment Clause and that conservative justices on the Supreme Court support government promotion of religion.
Conservative lawyer James Bopp Jr. disagreed.
“I just think that is so wrong,” Bopp,.general counsel at the James Madison Center for Free Speech, said in response to Ritter’s remarks. “This whole myth about a separation of church and state comes from a letter Jefferson wrote, not from the First Amendment.
“It had nothing to do with whether the government was going to be neutral or favorable to religion generally or even toward some strains of religion. It was written to change America from England. England had a government-established church and there were times you were required to be a member of it or be killed.”
Bopp, who argued that because the Establishment Clause is not at issue here, said the religious nature of the Ten Commandments monument in the Utah park isn’t central to the Summum case.
“The religious nature of this monument has nothing to do with this case, because there is no Establishment Clause claim,” Bopp said. “When they accepted this monument in 1971 the mayor said the monument was of historical significance to the community, because it was founded by the Mormons and the Ten Commandments (were) very important . . . for the Mormon community.”
Salt Lake City attorney Brian Barnard, who represents Summum in Utah, told CNSNews.com that while he can’t predict what the Supreme Court will rule, two other Utah municipalities that refused Summum monuments in their parks lost lower case rulings and both decided to take down their religious monuments rather than let the cult erect its own.
He added that his client’s goal isn’t to have religious monuments taken down, but to see to it that the Summum beliefs are represented in the public square.
“That’s not what Summum wants,” Barnard said. “Let’s be fair and let everyone put something up.”
The Seven Aphorisms of Summum are:
1. Summum is mind, thought; the universe is a mental creation.
2. As above, so below; as below, so above.
3. Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.
4. Everything is dual; everything has an opposing point; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes bond; all truths are but partial truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.
5. Everything flows out and in; everything has its season; all things rise and fall; the pendulum swing expresses itself in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates.
6. Every cause has its effect; every effect has its cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is just a name for Law not recognized; there are many fields of causation, but nothing escapes the Law of Destiny.
7. Gender is in everything; everything has its masculine and feminine principles; Gender manifests on all levels.
(Editor’s Note: Summum has no connection with the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints.)