The religion which calls itself Summum is a bit “interesting,” indeed. Between the story and the picture, I think you can understand how “fake Egyptian” is a good description.Nonetheless, as King Ed said about some South Sea Islands king either being a real king or else just a dark-skinned brute, Summum, in terms of the First Amendment, is either a real religion or fakery.
And, it’s now in the lap of the Supreme Court to decide that issue nearly so much as it is to decide the connected issue of whether it then deserves First Amendment protections.
In 2003, the president of Summum church wrote to the mayor of Pleasant Grove City, Utah, asking to erect a monument inscribed with his religion’s Seven Aphorisms in the city park, “similar in size and nature” to the one devoted to the Ten Commandments.
The city said no, and the legal battle was on.
Both the relevant federal district court and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled in Summum’s favor. SCOTUS has said cities can’t discriminate on pamphleteering in public places, but has yet to give an explicit ruling on donated religious objects.
Mayor Michael W. Daniels is spinning this as a history issue:
Only donations concerning the city’s history are eligible for display in the park as a matter of longstanding policy, he said, and only when donated by groups with a long association with the city. The Fraternal Order of Eagles, a national civic organization, donated the Ten Commandments monument in 1971.
But it’s really not that.
As for whether it’s a religion or not, beyond the Supremes, I guess the IRS is the final arbiter.
And, SCOTUS won’t be tackling it on that legal angle anyway, even though that’s the undercurrent.
The case instead is proceeding as a free-speech issue, hence the possible parallels with religious pamphleteering.
And, that said, I don’t know whether that angle will make it easier, or harder, for “civil religionists” like Nino Scalia to overturn the appellate court.
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