Is It Offensive to Pray In Jesus Name?

Coercive Secularism is on the march in several American institutions, including the military and the Virginia State Troopers. Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt is under attack by attorney Michael Weinstein and others for his explicitly Christian prayers. Klingenschmitt is worth "friending" on Facebook, and the Pray in Jesus' Name website is worth book-marking. If Christians leave Klingenschmitt to his fate while he's fighting our battles, we'll deserve what we get.
Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt - The Pray In Jesus Name Project / Homepage

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California Governor Signs Harvey Milk Day for Public Schools

How shameful that innocent little California schoolchildren are considered fair game for the Sodomite propaganda machine. Shame on Arnold Schwarzeneggar, RINO governor of California.

Flip-flopper governor signs 'Harvey Milk' bill (OneNewsNow.com)

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Walter Hoye at the Abortuary

Although the text here is somewhat dated, the video is worth a look. You are always going to hear pro-abortion people accuse prolife "sidewalk counselors" of menacing or harassing the women seeking abortions. I've been to an awful lot of events outside abortuaries over the years, and I have yet to see that. But if somebody is willing to rip tiny defenseless children limb from limb, or to pour toxic saline into their eyes and mucous membranes, or to give the mothers muscle contraction medication in order to crush the babies to death, I guess we shouldn't be shocked that such a person might resort to fibbing. Just cut and paste this URL.

http://blog.inthepublicsquare.com/2009/07/17/walter-hoye.aspx

In California, Assisted Fertility Industry is No Place for Christian Conscience

The coercive Sodomite State of California has brought two Christian physicians to heel, at last, following a California Supreme Court decision that Christian conscience is no excuse to refuse artificial insemination to a lesbian in a domestic relationship with another lesbian. Christian physicians Douglas Fenton and Christine Brody were obligated to indulge a homosexual woman who requested to be artificially impregnated in order to produce children that she and her lesbian companion would raise without a father.

This follows the pattern that has been so fruitful for coercive Sodomites: first seek tolerance, as objects of pity, then demand validation and approval and, finally, coerce active collaboration and punish any who decline to cooperate. Tolerance is just a transitional phase en route to the Sodomites' imposition of their will on every person they encounter.

Lesbian's suit over procedure is settled
By Greg Moran, Union-Tribune Staff Writer

A long-running lawsuit between an Oceanside lesbian couple and two doctors that pitted the civil rights of same-sex couples against religious freedom for physicians has been settled.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. It ends a lawsuit filed in 2001 by Guadalupe Benitez against Drs. Douglas Fenton and Christine Brody at North Coast Womens Care in Vista.

Benitez alleged that the doctors told her they would not inseminate her because their religious convictions — they are Christians — prohibited them from doing the procedure for a lesbian couple.

Benitez went to another doctor, got pregnant and had a child with her partner, Joanne Clark. The boy is now 7. The couple also have 4-year-old twins.
But she sued the doctors and clinic, arguing that the state's civil rights laws do not allow doctors to discriminate against patients based on their religious beliefs.

A state appeals court in San Diego ruled in 2006 in favor of the doctors. But in August 2008, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously for Benitez, saying that religious-liberty claims cannot excuse illegal discrimination.

Both the doctors and the couple released a joint statement in which the doctors said they were sorry that Benitez and Clark felt they were being treated differently because of their sexual orientation.

The doctors said they want “all of their patients, including those who are lesbian and gay, to feel welcome and accepted in their medical practice, and are committed to treating all of their patients with equal dignity and respect in the context of the highest quality of medical care.”

The doctors contended as the case went on that they declined to do the procedure because Benitez was unmarried — not because of her sexual orientation. But there was also evidence in the case early on that the doctors had acknowledged that they did not inseminate her because she is a lesbian.

Benitez said yesterday that she is pleased that the case is over. “It was a really hard thing to go through, but it was worth it because we have hopefully paved the way for other people, and made sure that this is not going to happen to someone else,” she said.

The lawyer for the doctors could not be reached for comment yesterday. Throughout the litigation, the physicians have declined to comment publicly on the case.
The state's civil rights law prohibits discrimination in businesses that cater to the public. The law does allow doctors to opt out of some kinds of medical procedures, such as abortion.

But if a physician does offer to do certain procedures, they must be made available to all, said Jennifer Pizer of Lambda Legal, an advocacy group for same-sex rights.
While the exact amount of the settlement is private, Pizer said it was enough so that the couple's children “will be able to have whatever type of education they want to have in the future.” The doctors did not admit any wrongdoing, she said.

Union-Tribune
Greg Moran: (619) 542-4586;

Pro-life Victory at Indian Supreme Court: Mentally Retarded Rape Victim Has Right to Refuse Abortion

Regent University law professor Scott Pryor posted on his blog Pryor Thoughts today about an Indian Supreme Court judgment barring a compulsory abortion against the wishes of a mentally retarded 19-year-old woman. Pryor recently returned from India where he taught law under a Fulbright Scholarship.

A Mother's Rights Vindicated

On 4 September I posted about the Indian Supreme Court judgment barring the abortion of the unborn child against the wishes of a mentally retarded 19-year old: http://pryorthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/09/buck-v-bell-india-style.html. I have since read the court’s opinion and corresponded with Bedi Tanu, the appellant's advocate who has practiced law for only six years.

Along with her senior advocate, she argued the case to the High Court in Chandigarh but lost. Nevertheless, through the efforts of friends and colleagues in Delhi, an appeal was delivered to the home of the Chief Justice of India at 9:00 pm on Friday night, only hours before the abortion was scheduled to take place the next morning.

Ms. Tanu argued the case on Monday after which a three-judge panel of the Supreme Court issued a short written order indicating its decision in favor of life, which was followed by the lengthy written judgment the last month.

I can’t summarize the meaning of this case any better than in the words Bedi wrote to me:

Every life is very precious. We have to see the world of others from their eyes and not our eyes. This girl has her world. We are doing nothing for her. We have no right to interfere in her world. Her rape was and is a heinous offence. The offender is the rapist; the child is innocent. If the mother wants her child for any reason, we can’t question her motherhood instinct on the parameter of IQ analysis. The disabled may not express their desires so easily (though this girl expressed her's unequivocally) but that does not mean they have no wishes. Disability is more in our perception, in our bias, than in the world. Life for the disabled is difficult and now, when the law is recognizing their rights, we cannot allow our prejudice, our ignorance, our stereotyped approach, to come in the way of life of self-determination of the mentally disabled.

http://pryorthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/09/mothers-rights-vindicated.html#comment-form

Thought Police Deployed by P.C. British Left

The steady, benign "bobby" of previous generations is giving way in the formerly free United Kingdom to a more Orwellian sort of intrusive ideological police model. Hilary White wrote last month about episodes of British police enforcing P.C. views against a teen schoolgirl, a 10-year-old boy and an elderly lady. I'm sure most British police officers are good people, but it sounds like the thoroughgoing disarmament of the British citizenry has emboldened the worst elements of the police there.

UK Police Increasingly Used to Enforce Political Correctness
14 year-old-student arrested and taken to police station after requesting move to class with students who speak English
By Hilary White

BRITAIN - A few days before his election as pope, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger denounced a growing "dictatorship of relativism." The pope's rhetorical device, however, is increasingly becoming the lived experience of ordinary Britons visited and questioned by police for publicly expressing politically or religiously "incorrect" views.

In October 2006, the Daily Mail reported that a 14-year-old school girl, Codie Stott, was arrested by police and detained in a cell for three hours after she asked to be moved into a group of students who spoke English in class. Stott was denounced to police for "racism" by her teachers at Harrop Fold High School in Worsley, Greater Manchester.

Codie told police that she had been placed in a group of five students who would or could not discuss the class work in English. When she asked to be moved to another group with whom she could communicate, the teacher responded, "It's racist, you're going to get done by the police." A week after the incident she was taken to Swinton police station under arrest. Codie told the Daily Mail, "They told me to take my laces out of my shoes and remove my jewelry, and I had my fingerprints and photograph taken."

In May this year, a shopkeeper in Manchester was threatened with prosecution under the race hate statutes if she did not remove a number of soft toys that some consider racist in origin. Moira Pickering, 62, was told by police to get rid of her stock of traditional English dolls called "gollywogs". Gollywogs, based on a children's literary character created by Florence Kate Upton, have been a staple of British children's toys since the late 19th century.

Pickering told the Daily Mail, "I find sex shops offensive, I find cabbage patch dolls offensive, but I wouldn't report them. Golliwogs have been going for years and I've always sold them. They sell very well. People are far too politically correct they go over the top."

In early April this year, a father of a ten-year-old boy was astounded when two police officers arrived at his Cheshire home to question his son for calling another boy "gay" in an email.

"I could not believe what I was hearing," Alan Rawlinson, aged 41, told media. "They told me they considered it a very serious offence. I thought they were joking at first… [T]his just seemed a huge waste of resources for something so trivial. I am furious about what has happened, it just seems the politically correct brigade are taking over."

"If somebody had called the police about something like this in my day they would have laughed - they certainly wouldn't have sent two officers out. It is completely ridiculous."

Perhaps more ominously, accusations of direct interference by police with the electoral process for ideological reasons are starting to be heard in Britain.

The British National Party, a far right but completely legal political party, is preparing a package of evidence to present to the Electoral Commission alleging that this May, West Midlands police interfered in the Birmingham local election at the behest of opposition parties. The party alleges that the police cooperated with a campaign of intimidation when they visited and questioned each of the 400 people in the Birmingham ridings who signed nomination papers for BNP candidates.

The BNP, a nationalist party opposed to non-ethnically British immigration, has been at pains recently to shed its early association with white supremacists. But its opposition particularly to Muslim, African and Pakistani immigration, and its nationalist anti-EU position, has earned the BNP the status of most politically incorrect, and therefore most publicly vilified party in recent British history.

Some observers have said that the combination of racial tensions and violence springing from mass immigration in densely crowded areas, together with a growing police and media suppression of free speech have created fertile ground for the nationalist party that excludes non-racially British members and is known for its blunt and forceful condemnations of politically correct ideology.

This backlash may explain why the BNP took 20,000 to 30,000 votes in the Birmingham area, despite police questioning their supporters, arrests of BNP party volunteers and organised "anti-fascist" opposition. Last week the BNP moved into fourth place behind the three main parties in a Parliamentary by-election in Sedgefield, County Durham, the riding recently vacated by former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Canadian Judge Holds That Christian Public Official Must Provide Gay Rites

Homosexuals and their allies are driving Christian conscience out of the public square, and Christians out of public service. There is unquestionably a great deal of synergy in this for coercive Sodomy, as it simultaneously removes existing obstacles to depravity and packs public institutions with willing soldiers for the next offensive campaign.

This summary of a recent Saskatchewan court decision comes from The Persecution & Prayer Alert, published by Voice of the Martyrs, Canada.

The Voice of the Martyrs, Canada
The Persecution & Prayer Alert
www.persecution.net

On July 23, Saskatchewan's Court of Queen's Bench Justice Janet McMurty
upheld the ruling of the province's Human Rights Tribunal that marriage
commissioner Orville Nichols did not have the right to refuse to marry a
same-sex couple in April 2004 on basis of his personal Christian beliefs.
(see www.persecution.net/ca-2008-06-25.htm) The tribunal had also ordered
Nichols to pay the complainant $2,500 in compensation.

Nichols had appealed the May 23 ruling, arguing that his religious beliefs
should be protected under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. McMurty
dismissed his argument, however, in her 39-page ruling dated July 17,
concluding that the Human Rights Tribunal was "correct in its finding that
the commission had established discrimination, and that accommodation of Mr.
Nichols' religious beliefs was not required." Nichols has 30 days to appeal
the decision. He has not indicated whether he will do so.

There is hope that the Saskatchewan government will introduce legislation
allowing marriage commissioners to refuse to perform same-sex marriages for
religious reasons. The government has referred two versions of new
legislation containing a religious exemption to the Saskatchewan Court of
Appeal to rule on their constitutionality.

Monolithic Sodomy Retracts NYU Welcome Due to Unforgivable Decency, Morality

Monolithic Sodomy scored another victory recently when it drove off an Asian scholar of civil rights and constitutionalism who had been invited to lecture at New York University. Anybody who believes that Big Sodomy is committed to tolerance and academic freedom has to account for incidents like this one, in which homosexuals and their allies in academia chased a meek foreign law professor out of the marketplace of ideas, for comments she offered while she was a member of her country's parliament.

Singapore Legal Scholar Cancels NYU Visit, Driven Off by Homosexuals & Their Allies

A Singaporean law professor has pulled out of a teaching stint at New York University after her traditional views triggered a backlash on campus.

Richard Revesz, dean of New York University's law school, says Thio Li-ann informed him she will not be teaching during the fall semester because of "controversy surrounding her views regarding homosexuality and gay rights.

"She explained that she was disappointed by what she called the 'atmosphere of hostility' by some members of our community towards her views and by the low enrollments in her classes," he said in a press release Friday.

Thio - a former member of Parliament and a current professor at the National University of Singapore, which has an exchange program with NYU - could not immediately be reached for comment.

The 41-year-old was due to teach courses on human rights law and constitutionalism in Asia at NYU during the fall semester starting in September. Singapore's Straits Times said NYU students were outraged after learning that Thio had said in a parliamentary debate in 2007 that repealing a colonial-era law making sex between men a criminal offense "would subvert social morality, the common good and undermine our liberties." More than 800 members of the NYU community signed a petition against Thio after gay activists circulated copies of her speech, it said.

Revesz said he was not aware of the speech when NYU made the offer to Thio, and both courses have now been cancelled as a result of her pullout.

In Singapore, sex between men is still a criminal offense punishable by up to two years in prison, although it is rarely enforced.

British municipal council fires employee for saying "God Bless" to homeless woman

A municipal council in the formerly free United Kingdom has fired an employee with 18 years' service for saying "God bless you" to a homeless woman with an incurable medical condition. This is the reality of Secular Humanist political correctness - it is not about tolerance or diversity. It is totalitarian in its ambitions, insensitive to suffering and utterly intolerant.

Wandsworth Council has sacked London Homelessness Prevention Officer after previously threatening "say 'God Bless' and we'll sack you"

A Homelessness Prevention officer with Wandsworth Council has been dismissed from work for encouraging a homeless woman with an incurable medical condition to look to God for help, after doctors told her they'd given up hope. Even the woman had said that she did not want him to lose his job.

Duke Amachree, aged 53 who has worked for the local authority for almost 18 years was suspended for discussing his faith with a client, and was told in an investigatory interview later that he should not raise the issue of religion at work. Not only was Amachree told it was inappropriate to 'ever talk about God', he was also told that he may not even say 'God bless'. Amachree, a member of the UK World Evangelism Church in London, was summoned to an interview as a result of a complaint made against him by a member of the public.

Michael Phillips, a solicitor working with the Christian Legal Centre, which was consulted by the worker, said: "Amachree met a client who was due to be moved out of her home because her landlord wished to sell the property. Doctors had told the client that she had an incurable illness and, as such, could only work part time. In general conversation, Amachree asked the lady why she believed her condition was incurable, and in encouragement, commented that sometimes doctors do not have all the answers. So concerned was he that the lady was in despair and without hope, he suggested she might try putting her trust in God. The lady, however, explained that she had tried religion and because she did not have any faith she was satisfied with what the doctors had told her and was able to move on. She smiled, thanked Amachree and left."

Two days later Amachree was handed a letter informing him that a service user (the lady) had made serious allegations against him and he was therefore suspended.

Phillips, who was present at the meeting today and on previous occasions, added: "Amachree's employers told him that 'God had to be kept out of the workplace'. He was accused of crossing boundaries. The issue of religion, according to the interviewer, should not be raised in a housing issue. I, on behalf of Mr. Amachree, queried this statement by asking if 'God bless' would be an appropriate comment. He was told that it would not be appropriate and that any complaint would again lead to an investigation. Today they have reached their verdict and carried out their threat of dismissing him. This is a clear manifestation of secular intolerance."

Amachree will take his employers to an Employment Tribunal. His claim is that their decision effectively 'privatises' Christian faith and is against his human rights. His case comes after a number of public sector workers have seen their employers forcing secularist views on them . The Christian Legal Centre, and its legal team has supported Caroline Petrie, the nurse who was suspended for offering to pray for a patient, a Christian magistrate forced to resign over his reluctance to place children into the care of homosexual couples; a Police Officer sacked for using the internal email system to respond to blatant pro-gay advertising in his force, and a myriad of cases where Christian foster parents have been refused the opportunity to care for children on the grounds of their faith and practice. CLC has instructed leading Human Rights barrister, Paul Diamond, to take up the case.

Andrea Minichiello Williams, director of the CLC said: "We are supporting Mr. Amachree in this case because it is absurd and unjust to think that any public body could be in a position to enforce a policy which means that you can't even say 'God Bless' . This would effectively mean that faith would become entirely privatised. A Christian cannot leave faith out of any aspect of his or her life including work ."

Obamist IRS Presses Pillow to the Face of Peaceful Pro-life Activism in Iowa

One has to wonder if the Obama IRS clamp-down on peaceful pro-lifers in Iowa is a harbinger of future totalitarianism. According to this slightly edited press release from the Catholic lawyers' Thomas More Society, the new sheriff in town has delivered an ultimatum to the Coalition for Life of Iowa: abandon your protests against Planned Parenthood, or abandon your tax-exempt status.

As a Condition for 501(c)(3) Recognition, IRS Demanded Assurance that the "Coalition for Life of Iowa" Not Picket or Protest Planned Parenthood Locations

The Thomas More Society has demanded that the IRS withdraw its opposition to the 501(c)(3) status of the Coalition for Life of Iowa.

After inquiring about the "educational" nature of the Coalition for Life of Iowa's activities, the Internal Revenue Service stated that it would not grant tax exemption unless the Coalition agreed to limit its "picketing" and "protesting" of Planned Parenthood. Compliance with this request would result in a restriction of the speech of the Coalition for Life, as well as a breach its First Amendment rights.

While other similar pro-life non-profits have had little trouble attaining tax-exempt status from the IRS in the past, this unwarranted ultimatum reveals what may be a new government prejudice against pro-life organizations and the Pro-Life movement. Such demands should never arise in the IRS's decision-making process to grant tax-exempt status for any applicant non-profit organization.

Read more on the IRS ultimatum on the TMS website at http://www.thomasmoresociety.org.

Authoritarian Sodomy Silences Decent British Schoolteachers

Authoritarian Sodomy suffered a partial reversal in the formerly free United Kingdom recently when North London schoolteacher Kwabena Peat was restored to his teaching position after gay allies suspended him for expressing his Christian views outside the classroom. The Christian Legal Centre represented Peat, and issued the release below.

Although the seasoned 54-year-old educator will return to his classroom in the Fall, the homosexuals and their collaborators nevertheless have succeeded in silencing him in the future, prohibiting any open discussion of the moral dimensions of sodomy or of the coercive sodomite regime that has descended on the United Kingdom, via the school order's gag order against Peat.

If U.S. Christians have wearied of the culture wars, if they're counseled to just go along with U.S. sodomites on gay marriage and hate crimes legislation, they should at least surrender without deluding themselves that the totalitarians will then leave them in peace. Kwabena Peat has seen the future, and he is now prohibited by the most depraved elements of his country, in the birthplace of the Magna Carta, from telling you about it.

Christian Teacher facing sack for expressing Christian beliefs on homosexual practice to Colleagues is re-instated after threat of Legal Action

Kwabena Peat's Story : A senior London teacher, suspended and threatened with the sack for expressing his Christian beliefs at work will be back at work next term.

Kwabena Peat, 54, was suspended after he complained that a staff training day was used to promote homosexual rights, and to marginalise and label those who disagreed with homosexual practice. His case follows a number of others which have left Christians feeling sidelined in the workplace.


Mr Peat, who is head of year at a North London secondary school, walked out of the compulsory training session along with several other colleagues. The session included a presentation by Sue Sanders, a co-founder of the Schools Out organisation which promotes a radical homosexual agenda in schools, in which she questioned whether heterosexuality was “natural”.

Mr Peat states there was no opportunity for those with a different point of view to respond. He wrote to three staff who organised the event and complained about the “aggressive” presentation of homosexual rights. His letter also referred to his Christian beliefs about the practice of homosexuality – that sex should be between a man and woman within marriage.


The recipients of the letter said they felt “harassed and intimidated” by it. Following an investigation, Mr Peat was suspended.


The committed Christian said he fully expected the training session to provide information to help teachers handle homophobic bullying, but the guest speaker had gone much further. He said: “She started promoting homosexual lifestyles and suggesting those who had objections should sort out their prejudices. She asked us ‘What makes you all think that to be heterosexual is natural?’ It was at that point I walked out.”


Mr Peat, supported by the Christian Legal Centre challenged the school’s employment procedures and informed the school that claiming the letter ‘harassed’ staff was ludicrous as the teachers to whom he complained about the event were all senior to him. He also told them he believed the charge ‘gross misconduct’ was disproportionate to any alleged ‘offence’ that they claimed to have taken place. The CLC instructed leading human rights barrister Paul Diamond to advise the teacher and as a result, Mr Peat told the school he was prepared to take them through Industrial Tribunal, and if necessary, to seek a Judicial Review of the Human Rights of Christian Teachers via the High Court if necessary.


The school’s appeal panel, meeting last Friday, week agreed the charge of ‘gross misconduct’ to be disproportionate, and Mr Peat will return to work when the new term commences in September.


Andrea Minichiello Williams, barrister and director of the Christian Legal Centre said: “Although we consider this a great victory for common sense, the School is still seeking to control Mr Peat’s views and behaviour by not allowing him to talk about what has happened, both within the school or via the media, which has been very supportive. Mr Peat was discriminated against for expressing his Christian faith and his invitation to consider Christianity was deemed ‘harassment’. What kind of society are we living in when a legitimate orthodox Christian view as expressed by Mr Peat is construed in this way?


“I am delighted that CLC has secured another success, and that Mr Peat can return to work. It must surely be deemed unacceptable that highly trained teachers should be discriminated against and face dismissal for seeking to protect children. Mr Peat simply expressed a Christian viewpoint and objected to the school undermining parental rights regarding the education of their children on sexual ethics. He should be applauded for challenging the new political orthodoxy in an attempt to protect children rather than face such harsh intimidation”.


Mr Peat is not available for media interviews in order to comply with the school’s request.

Democrats Will Enact Hate Crimes With Minimum of Debate and Transparency

If Democrats were actually proud of their "hate crimes" proposal, they ought to be willing to hold hearings on it, debate and discuss it, and be accountable for their public comments on it. But they're not. According to this LifeSiteNews article, they intend to slip it into the law books by riders (legislative amendment to unrelated legislation, such as a budget measure).

Hate Crimes Bill to be Smuggled through Senate as a Legislative Amendment
By Peter J. Smith, LifeSiteNews.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews.com) – The US Senate intends to smuggle controversial hate crimes legislation into federal law by passing it as an amendment to another major piece of legislation instead of a stand-alone piece of legislation, according to remarks by a representative of a major homosexualist organization.

"We understand that Senate leadership does not believe a hearing or mark up on the bill is necessary and plans to bring it directly to the floor as an amendment to another moving vehicle," said Trevor Thomas, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), in a statement provided to the Washington Blade, a homosexual news journal.

Although the US House of Representatives had passed H.R. 1913, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, as a stand-alone bill by a 249-175 margin in April, the Senate leadership had until lately been debating how to pass its version S. 909 - either as a stand-alone piece legislation which could attract opposition and a possible filibuster, or as an amendment.

Thomas told the Blade that the Senate had opted for the latter as “the most efficient way” to guarantee the measure arrived as quickly as possible at President Barack Obama’s desk for signature.

Opponents of the hate crimes legislation have charged that the bill violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution by making an individual’s thought regarding certain groups as much a factor as the nature of his act in prosecuting a crime.

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins has pointed out that, “What converts the acts targeted by this bill into a federal offense are the thoughts or opinions of the perpetrator alone.”

H.R. 1913 added "sexual orientation" and “gender identity” as well as race, religion, class, gender, and disability to categories that are protected as "hate crimes.” Under this legislation, crimes against individuals who belong to the protected classes receive stiffer penalties than crimes against other groups not mentioned by the bill, a fact that critics charge makes “second class citizens” out of those not covered by the law.

The bill has also been labeled the "pedophile protection act," in large part due to the refusal of House members to approve an amendment specifying that the bill would not penalize the free speech of those objecting to pedophilia.

The term “sexual orientation” is not defined in the bill, an oversight that some legislators charge could lead to a too broad interpretation – since the term is used by psychologists to encompass a variety of sexual deviancies (including pedophilia), and not just homosexuality.

The HRC told the Blade that they are pushing to have the legislation approved before the end of the August session. It stated that senators in favor of the “hate crimes” bill are looking for “any and all options” as vehicles for the passage of the amendment.

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Focus on the Family's Dobson on Hate Crimes Bill: "Utter Evil" Coming out of Congress http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09052002.html

Free Speech Concerns Ignored as "Hate Crimes" Bill Passes Fed. Judiciary Committee http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09042407.html

Obama Urges House of Representatives to Pass Sexual Orientation "Hate Crimes" Bill http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09042911.html

Fed. Judiciary Committee to Examine Homosexualist "Hate Crimes" Bill Monday
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09041714.html

Pro-Family Group Urges Congress to Oppose Federal "Hate Crimes" Bill Set for Committee Hearing Tomorrow http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09042114.html

Children of the Sodomites

It was always counter-intuitive that people unable to restrain themselves from the most degrading encounters with fellow adults could nevertheless be wholesome, protective parents to vulnerable, dependent children. But credulous North Americans accepted it on the authority of "experts" and journalists.

Dawn Stefanowicz has cataloged the acts of media complicity and academic legerdemain in her book about the children - including herself - raised by homosexual partners.

SILENCING THE PROBLEMS OF CHILDREN RAISED IN SAME-SEX HOUSEHOLDS
By Dawn Stefanowicz
Author, Out from Under

Quoting propagandist Joseph Goebbels, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it..." For a long time, powerful media have been complicit with those trying to keep people in ignorance about same-sex parenting by silencing debate, and smothering freedom of speech. The impact on children who grow up with same-sex parents is being silenced.

Before my book, Out From Under: The Impact of Homosexual Parenting, was published (see Book Review), Canada was in the midst of debating hate crime legislation and same-sex "marriage," I had testified in 2004 at the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and was concerned that the inclusion of "sexual orientation" as a protected category under hate crime legislation would silence freedom of speech. I felt the public was being duped into believing that there were terrible crimes being committed against "gays" and "lesbians" by heterosexuals.

There are no solid statistics to support this. In addition, the media refuses to mention the significant number of same-sex domestic emotional and physical assaults within their subculture. As well, using the undefined term "hate" eludes the real issue: certain people wanting the sexual license and "human right" to do what they please without detraction or constraint.

By the way, the term "sexual orientation" includes sexual attractions or sexual practices involving a person, group of persons, animals, natural or inanimate objects, and legal or illegal sexual practices which are privately or publicly demonstrated. There are no restrictions based on age, blood relation, or gender. Therefore, pedophilia, incest, bestiality, sadomasochism, bondage, public nudity, and group sex can be protected under the expression "sexual orientation". These are sexual behaviours I was exposed to growing up with a homosexual father.

After my book was published, I contacted CBC, telling them I was available for interviews. I received no queries from them or from other mainstream Canadian media which I had also notified. Instead, the CBC and other Canadian mainstream media continued with their unbalanced content, failing to mention the problems caused to children by alternative homosexual households.

A few brave Canadian independent television shows, however, did interview me. It was not long before the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) was contacted with complaints of alleged hate and homophobia in connection with my interviews. When the CRTC couldn't find anything wrong with my tone or my comments, it then advised these family friendly media outlets that they must henceforth provide "balance" on their programming on the issue, i.e., include the other side's perspective on same-sex parenting, or else have their broadcasting licenses revoked.

This was outrageous since the mainstream media are pro same-sex parenting and are not required to provide so-called "balance" in their programming on the issue. The CBC, for example, uses our tax dollars to spew forth propaganda supporting same-sex parenting. However, small independent media which rely on sponsors and advertisers are required to provide programs providing both perspectives of the same-sex parenting issue.

As a result of the CRTC ruling, the media outlets which originally aired my story have not contacted me for further interviews. I laud the courage of these pro-life/pro-family stations which interviewed me initially on the truth about "alternative" parenting and subcultures which have opened a Pandora's box of sorrows for children. However, because they want to stay in operation with their licenses intact, they must now comply with the discriminatory hand dealt them by the CRTC.

Media Interviews Outside Canada

In contrast to the disgraceful media censorship in Canada, I was in Ireland in October and spoke before good-sized audiences there, and had a dozen mainstream interviews. By the end of my tour, I was heard by over half of the population of Ireland. In addition, the Washington Times, Michael Medved Show, 30 Days (Fox), Janet Parshall's America and many other U.S. media have covered my book with vigor.

Australia and Hong Kong's print media also have interviewed me. But Canadian media continue to perpetuate the lie that there is no difference between children raised by homosexual and heterosexual parents. Consequently, innocent vulnerable children in Canada are being adopted by same-sex parents despite the fact that this is detrimental to them.

It is not that my story about homosexual parenting is unsupported. Dr. Steven Nock, research methodologist, at the request of the Attorney General of Canada, submitted an affidavit opposed to same-sex marriage in the Halpern vs AG case in 2000 in which he reported over 200 same-sex parenting studies which "contained at least one fatal flaw of design or execution; and not a single one of those studies was conducted according to general accepted standards of scientific research."

When clinical psychologists, Dr. Mark Lerner and Dr. Althea Nagai reviewed 49 same-sex parenting studies, all were found unreliable and the sample sizes too small for relevance.

When Sharon Quick, M.D., a paediatric anesthesiologist, and pediatric critical care physician and former assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, reviewed 63 same-sex parenting studies, she found major design flaws, interpretive errors, and unsupported conclusions.

Interestingly, no heterosexual married couples were ever included in any of these studies so you cannot say homosexual parenting is equal or better. In almost every study, "lesbian" single mothers and "heterosexual" single mothers were compared.

The participants were cherry-picked by biased researchers, including "lesbian" participants with higher education and income levels while removing those with mental health issues or criminal records. In most cases, the parent spoke for the dependent child, and in a few cases where children were asked general questions, their responses were qualified.

Dr. Quick reviewed the Technical Report (TR), published in 2002 in Pediatrics, the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which was also used as evidence for the American Medical Association's policy statement supporting the practice of same-sex co-parent adoptions.

In the TR, Dr. Quick found that 57 percent of the references were inaccurately quoted. Unfortunately, some of these TR quotation errors have been carried on in the article, "The effects of marriage, civil union, and domestic partnership laws on the health and well-being of children," published in the July 2006 issue of Pediatrics.

The important life-long benefits for children raised in married father-mother home environments cannot be ignored. When Dr. G. Rekers, Professor of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science, Research Director for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Chairman of Faculty in Psychology at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Columbia, S.C. reviewed over two hundred cases of children from homosexual households, he found the children... experienced changing living arrangements, varied cultural values, premature exposure to expressed sexuality, addictions by parents and partners, physical health issues, lower life expectancy, multiple partners, varied gender identity expressions and role models. These traumatized the children.

Consequently, many children from alternative households seek therapy to deal with stress, depression, anxiety, sexual confusion, and suicidal tendencies.

Though I loved my father and cared for his partners, by nine years of age, two of my father's partners had committed suicide after breakups with my father. My father later died of AIDS in 1991. None of my father's partners/ex-partners are alive today.

Editor's Notes

To invite Dawn as a guest speaker or book her for an interview, please contact her at Commissioners Court Plaza, 509 Commissioners Road West, Suite #335, London, Ontario, Canada N6J 1Y5 or e-mail at dawnstefano@sympatico.ca.

Due to space limitations, footnotes for this article were not included, but are available upon request.

Clinton Appointee Annoyed by Appeal, Orders Pesky Rural Counties Plundered for ACLU Attorney Fees

Authoritarian Atheism is tightening the vice on rural Kentuckians who dared to post the Ten Commandments in their county courthouses, according to this article that ran in the McClatchy newspapers on Wednesday. A federal judge faulted the poverty-stricken southern counties for tenaciously resisting the ACLU in court, thus bringing mountainous legal fees (to be paid to the ACLU's lawyers) upon themselves.

For the Hon. Jennifer Coffman, Chief Judge of the Eastern District of Kentucky, prompt capitulation is the only acceptable response to the ACLU. The Clinton appointee may be extra peevish at the uppity Kentuckians' appellate efforts since she was the one who originally ordered the Ten Commandments removed May 5, 2000. Her rulings have uniformly favored the ACLU since that time.

Kentucky counties fined $400,000 for posting Ten Commandments
The Guardian (McClatchy newspapers) - March 18, 2009

Two southern Kentucky counties where officials posted copies of the Ten Commandments in courthouses have been ordered by a federal judge to pay more than $400,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union and citizens who successfully challenged the displays. US district judge Jennifer B. Coffman ordered Pulaski and McCreary counties to pay $393,798 in attorneys' fees and $8,133 in expenses to the ACLU of Kentucky and citizens.

Coffman's decision is the latest ruling in a court fight that began a decade ago. The counties don't have to pay immediately because aspects of the case are still being appealed. But if the counties ultimately lose, taxpayers could be on the hook for the bill if insurance doesn't cover it.

McCreary county judge-executive Blaine Phillips said he doesn't think the county's insurance policy would cover its share of the payment. Phillips said McCreary county might seek donations if it has to split the cost of the Ten Commandments fight with Pulaski county. He was reluctant to even mention taxpayer dollars as a possible source for the payment.

"That'll be a hard pill to swallow" if the county has to pay, Phillips said. McCreary county is one of the state's poorest, and is hard-pressed at times to fund police protection and other services.

Phillips said there's been no discussion on how to share the bill with Pulaski county if that becomes necessary. But Mathew Staver, who represents the counties, said he thinks their insurance companies would cover the judgement if the counties someday have to pay.

He said if the counties win the case on appeal, they wouldn't have to pay the ACLU. That is the goal, said Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal group.

David A Friedman, lead attorney for the ACLU, agreed that the counties wouldn't have to pay all $400,000 if they win their appeal. However, the ACLU and the citizens who filed the lawsuit would still be entitled to a significant fee award, Friedman said.

The counties argued to Coffman that the fee request from the ACLU was unreasonable. The attorneys spent too much time on some tasks such as legal research, billed for some things they shouldn't have and sought fees that were too high, the counties argued. Coffman disagreed on every point, ruling that the ACLU fee request was reasonable for a complex case that required 1,300 hours of work over 10 years.

She also noted that the counties' own actions ran up the legal bill in the case. The counties started the court battle by posting standalone copies of the Ten Commandments that were "indisputably unconstitutional" at the time, then fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to defend their actions, Coffman said.

"The defendants 'cannot litigate tenaciously and then be heard to complain about the time necessarily spent ... in response,'" Coffman wrote, citing an earlier court opinion.

guardian.co.uk (c) Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

Homosexuals and Unbelievers Triumph Over Christians in 9th Circuit Case

The Ninth Circuit struck yet another blow in favor of authoritarian sodomy in the University of California system today, as it ruled (with lightening-like speed) that Hastings Law need not accord recognition or funding to a Christian student group, due to the Christians' discrimination, in membership and selection of officers, on the bases of religion and sexual orientation.

The Christian Legal Society is expected to petition the U.S. Supreme Court for certiorari, and the case is a good candidate for Supreme Court review due to the multiple cases arising from this issue at universities across the nation. (One of the reasons the Court accepts a case is to establish a single national rule that applies across all judicial circuits and districts.)

National Law Journal staff reporter Pamela A. MacLean wrote the brief report below.

Law school cannot be required to recognize and fund a religious student group that discriminates
by Pamela A. MacLean Staff reporter

March 18, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — The University of California Hastings College of the Law cannot be required to recognize and fund a religious student group that discriminates in the selection of members and officers, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday.

Just a week after hearing arguments in the case, the 9th Circuit issued a one-paragraph, unpublished order that Hastings' open membership rule prohibiting discrimination based on religion or sexual orientation of members is "viewpoint neutral and reasonable."

The Christian Legal Society made clear after the March 10 argument that it would appeal if it lost at this stage. Christian Legal Society v. Kane, No. 06-15956.

Hastings' attorney, Ethan Schulman of Folger Levin & Kahn in San Francisco, said the issue has arisen repeatedly in test cases at various university campuses across the country. The most recent was Feb. 6 in San Diego. In that case, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns granted summary judgment for San Diego State University against a challenge by Christian student groups.

The CLS case is one of a half-dozen test cases the group has filed in recent years against law schools around the country over similar nondiscrimination pledge requirements. The 9th Circuit decision to side with Hastings may put it in direct conflict with the 7th Circuit.

CLS attorney Timothy J. Tracey, of the Springfield, Va.-based Center for Law and Religious Freedom, argued that the school's denial of official recognition deprives it of some funding, access to recruit students at official events and access to the school Web site and other publications. The school does provide meeting space.

The 9th Circuit panel found that Hastings' rule requiring open voting membership in all student groups, even if members disagree with the mission of the group, is permitted under the 9th Circuit's decision in Truth v. Kent School Dist., 542 F.3d 634 (9th Cir. 2008), which currently has an application for U.S. Supreme Court review pending.

Obama Consolidates Power, Disrupts Supply Trains of Potential Rivals

A post in today's Comparing Obama and JFK blog reports on the president's disturbing decisions to consolidate personal power and create insatiable new entitlement constituencies at the price of transforming America's robust, independent private philanthropy sector into gaunt mendicants. Here is an excerpt.

Obama consolidates power, reduces privately-funded philanthropy to his discipline

No danger of confusing President Obama with JFK here. He is not only increasing taxes robustly, but cutting the deductions allowed for charitable contributions. This is not mere revenue generation, but consolidation of power in the national government at the expense of private philanthropy - especially churches and parachurch organizations - which compels further dependency on government officials, and potentially yields a large, loyal patronage constituency where once potential rivals lurked.

Princeton professor Robert George has observed that socialism is not merely antithetical to individualism, but it is an attack on "mediating civic institutions," such as the family and the church. When collectivists' ambitions ambitions approach the totalitarian, there's not enough room on this planet for government and church and family. In the long run, such totalitarians cannot tolerate independent families or churches, and come to view them as incubators for resistance.

American Leftists couldn't openly oppress church and family a generation ago, but times have changed. They are now in full control of the media (see yesterday's post about "media malpractice"), so there is no watchdog to hold them accountable. Our civic literacy has been suppressed (see yesterday's post for the URL to filmmaker John Ziegler's exit interviews of 2008 voters) enough that electoral accountability is unlikely. Triumphal Leftists are casting off restraint now as the Leftist regime settles in.

As an example, legislators in Connecticut recently proposed a bill to remove Catholic Church property from the custody of its bishops, and to require that it be held in trust by laymen. This is transparently an act of retaliation against the church because it dares to oppose homosexual marriage. The Latter Day Saints are incurring similar intimidation in California, for the same reason.

Already Catholic Charities has been driven out of the child adoption business in Massachusetts by homosexualists. If President Obama and his allies are not restrained, there will be soon be no refuge for Christian philanthropy - or Christian conscience - in the U.S.

Supreme Court's syllabus & decision in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum

Here is an unofficial syllabus and decision of the Supreme Court ruling last Wednesday on the 10 Commandments memorial case from Utah. It was a 9-0 victory for Pleasant Grove City and its attorney, American Center for Law and Justice chief counsel Jay Sekulow.

Some of the footnotes were garbled and have been condensed. Otherwise this is a fairly accurate reproduction of the original document.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
PLEASANT GROVE CITY, UTAH, ET AL. v. SUMMUM
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
No. 07–665. Argued November 12, 2008—Decided February 25, 2009

Pioneer Park (Park), a public park in petitioner Pleasant Grove City(City), has at least 11 permanent, privately donated displays, including a Ten Commandments monument. In rejecting the request of respondent Summum, a religious organization, to erect a monument containing the Seven Aphorisms of Summum, the City explained that it limited park monuments to those either directly related to the City’s history or donated by groups with longstanding community ties. After the City put that policy and other criteria into writing, respondent renewed its request, but did not describe the monument’s historical significance or respondent’s connection to the community. The City rejected the request, and respondent filed suit, claiming that the City and petitioner officials had violated the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause by accepting the Ten Commandments monument but rejecting respondent’s proposed monument. The District Court denied respondent’s preliminary injunction request, but the Tenth Circuit reversed. Noting that it had previously found the Ten Commandments monument to be private rather than government speech and that public parks have traditionally been regarded as public forums, the court held that, because the exclusion of the monument was unlikely to survive strict scrutiny, the City was required to erect it immediately. Held: The placement of a permanent monument in a public park is aform of government speech and is therefore not subject to scrutiny under the Free Speech Clause. Pp. 4–18.
(a)
Because that Clause restricts government regulation of private speech but not government speech, whether petitioners were engaging in their own expressive conduct or providing a forum for private speech determines which precedents govern here. Pp. 4–7.
2 PLEASANT GROVE CITY v. SUMMUM
Syllabus
(1)
A government entity “is entitled to say what it wishes,” Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 833, and to select the views that it wants to express, see, e.g., Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U. S. 173, 194. It may exercise this same freedom when it receives private assistance for the purpose of delivering a government-controlled message. See Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Assn., 544 U. S. 550, 562. This does not mean that there are no restraints on government speech. For example, government speech must comport with the Establishment Clause. In addition, public officials’ involvement in advocacy may be limited by law, regulation, or practice; and a government entity is ultimately “accountable to the electorate and the political process for its advocacy,” Board of Regents of Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth, 529 U. S. 217, 235. Pp. 4–6.
(2)
In contrast, government entities are strictly limited in their ability to regulate private speech in “traditional public fora.” Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788, 800. Reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions are allowed, see Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators’ Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 45, but content-based restrictions must satisfy strict scrutiny, i.e., they must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest, see Cornelius, supra, at 800. Restrictions based on viewpoint are also prohibited. Carey v. Brown, 447 U. S. 455, 463. Government restrictions on speech in a “designated public forum” are subject to the same strict scrutiny as restrictions in a traditional public forum. Cornelius, supra, at 800. And where government creates a forum that is limited to use by certain groups or dedicated to the discussion of cer-tain subjects, Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 46, n. 7, it may impose reasonable and viewpoint-neutral restrictions, see Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U. S. 98, 106–107. Pp. 6–7.
(b)
Permanent monuments displayed on public property typically represent government speech. Governments have long used monuments to speak to the public. Thus, a government-commissioned and government-financed monument placed on public land constitutes government speech. So, too, are privately financed and donatedmonuments that the government accepts for public display on gov-ernment land. While government entities regularly accept privately funded or donated monuments, their general practice has been one of selective receptivity. Because city parks play an important role in defining the identity that a city projects to its residents and the outside world, cities take care in accepting donated monuments, selectingthose that portray what the government decisionmakers view as appropriate for the place in question, based on esthetics, history, andlocal culture. The accepted monuments are meant to convey and have the effect of conveying a government message and thus consti-
tute government speech. Pp. 7–10.
(c)
Here, the Park’s monuments clearly represent government speech. Although many were donated in completed form by private entities, the City has “effectively controlled” their messages by exercising “final approval authority” over their selection. Johanns, supra,at 560–561. The City has selected monuments that present the image that the City wishes to project to Park visitors; it has taken ownership of most of the monuments in the Park, including the Ten Commandments monument; and it has now expressly set out selection criteria. P. 10.
(d)
Respondent’s legitimate concern that the government speech doctrine not be used as a subterfuge for favoring certain viewpoints does not mean that a government entity should be required to embrace publicly a privately donated monument’s “message” in order to escape Free Speech Clause restrictions. A city engages in expressive conduct by accepting and displaying a privately donated monument,but it does not necessarily endorse the specific meaning that any particular donor sees in the monument. A government’s message may be altered by the subsequent addition of other monuments in the same vicinity. It may also change over time. Pp. 10–15.
(e)
“[P]ublic forum principles . . . are out of place in the context of this case.” United States v. American Library Assn., Inc., 539 U. S. 194, 205. The forum doctrine applies where a government propertyor program is capable of accommodating a large number of publicspeakers without defeating the essential function of the land or program, but public parks can accommodate only a limited number of permanent monuments. If governments must maintain viewpoint neutrality in selecting donated monuments, they must either prepare for cluttered parks or face pressure to remove longstanding and cherished monuments. Were public parks considered traditional public forums for the purpose of erecting privately donated monuments, most parks would have little choice but to refuse all such donations. And if forum analysis would lead almost inexorably to closing of the forum, forum analysis is out of place. Capitol Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U. S. 753, distinguished. Pp. 15–18. 483 F. 3d 1044, reversed.

ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and STEVENS, SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which GINSBURG, J., joined. SCALIA, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which THOMAS, J., joined. BREYER, J., filed a concurring opinion. SOUTER, J., filed an opin-ion concurring in the judgment.
_________________
_________________
Cite as: 555 U. S. ____ (2009) 1
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in thepreliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested tonotify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in orderthat corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 07–665
PLEASANT GROVE CITY, UTAH, ET AL., PETITIONERS
v. SUMMUM
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
[February 25, 2009]

JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment entitles a private group to insist that a municipality permit it to place a permanent monument in a city park in which other do-nated monuments were previously erected. The Court of Appeals held that the municipality was required to accept the monument because a public park is a traditional public forum. We conclude, however, that although a park is a traditional public forum for speeches and other transitory expressive acts, the display of a permanent monument in a public park is not a form of expression to which forum analysis applies. Instead, the placement of a permanent monument in a public park is best viewed as a form of government speech and is therefore not subject to scrutiny under the Free Speech Clause.

I
A
Pioneer Park (or Park) is a 2.5 acre public park locatedin the Historic District of Pleasant Grove City (or City) in Utah. The Park currently contains 15 permanent displays, at least 11 of which were donated by private groups or individuals. These include an historic granary, a wishing well, the City’s first fire station, a September 11 monument, and a Ten Commandments monument donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1971.

Respondent Summum is a religious organization founded in 1975 and headquartered in Salt Lake City,Utah. On two separate occasions in 2003, Summum’s president wrote a letter to the City’s mayor requesting permission to erect a “stone monument,” which would contain “the Seven Aphorisms of SUMMUM” and be similar in size and nature to the Ten Commandments monument.(Respondent’s brief describes the church and the Seven Aphorisms as follows: “The Summum church incorporates elements of Gnostic Christianity, teaching that spiritual knowledge is experiential and that through devotion comes revelation, which ‘modifies human perceptions, and transfigures the individual.’ See The Teachings of Summum are the Teachings of Gnostic Christianity, http://www.summum.us/philosophy/gnosticism.shtml.

“Central to Summum religious belief and practice are the SevenPrinciples of Creation [the “Seven Aphorisms”]. According to Summum doctrine, the Seven Aphorisms were inscribed on the original tablets handed down by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. . . . Because Moses believed that the Israelites were not ready to receive the Aphorisms, he shared them only with a select group of people. In the Summum Exodus account, Moses then destroyed the original tablets, traveled back to Mount Sinai, and returned with a second set of tablets containing the Ten Commandments. See The Aphorisms of Summum and the Ten Commandments ,http://www.summum.us/philosophy/tencommandments.shtml.)

The City denied the requests and explained that its practice was to limit monuments in the Park to those that “either (1) directly relate to the history of Pleasant Grove, or (2) were donated by groups with longstanding ties to the Pleasant Grove community.” Id., at 61. The following year, the City passed a resolution putting this policy into writing. The resolution also mentioned other criteria, such as safety and esthetics.

In May 2005, respondent’s president again wrote to the mayor asking to erect a monument, but the letter did not describe the monument, its historical significance, or Summum’s connection to the community. The city council rejected this request.
B In 2005, respondent filed this action against the City and various local officials (petitioners), asserting, among other claims, that petitioners had violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment by accepting the Ten Commandments monument but rejecting the proposed Seven Aphorisms monument. Respondent sought a pre-liminary injunction directing the City to permit Summum to erect its monument in Pioneer Park. After the District Court denied Summum’s preliminary injunction request, No. 2:05CV00638, 2006 WL 3421838 (D Utah, Nov. 22,2006), respondent appealed, pressing solely its free speech claim. A panel of the Tenth Circuit reversed. 483 F. 3d 1044 (2007). The panel noted that it had previously found the Ten Commandments monument to be private rather than government speech. See Summum v. Ogden, 297 F. 3d 995 (2002). Noting that public parks have traditionally been regarded as public forums, the panel held that the City could not reject the Seven Aphorisms monument unless it had a compelling justification that could not be served by more narrowly tailored means. See 483 F. 3d, at 1054. The panel then concluded that the exclusion of respondent’s monument was unlikely to survive this strictscrutiny, and the panel therefore held that the City was required to erect Summum’s monument immediately. The Tenth Circuit denied the City’s petition for rehear-ing en banc by an equally divided vote. 499 F. 3d 1170
4 PLEASANT GROVE CITY v. SUMMUM
Opinion of the Court
(2007). Judge Lucero dissented, arguing that the Park was not a traditional public forum for the purpose of displaying monuments. Id., at 1171. Judge McConnell also dissented, contending that the monuments in the Park constitute government speech. Id., at 1174.
We granted certiorari, 552 U. S. ___ (2008), and now reverse.

II No prior decision of this Court has addressed the application of the Free Speech Clause to a government entity’s acceptance of privately donated, permanent monumentsfor installation in a public park, and the parties disagree sharply about the line of precedents that governs this situation. Petitioners contend that the pertinent cases are those concerning government speech. Respondent, on the other hand, agrees with the Court of Appeals panel that the applicable cases are those that analyze private speech in a public forum. The parties’ fundamental disagreement thus centers on the nature of petitioners’ conduct when they permitted privately donated monuments to be erected in Pioneer Park. Were petitioners engaging in their own expressive conduct? Or were they providing a forum for private speech?

A
If petitioners were engaging in their own expressive conduct, then the Free Speech Clause has no application. The Free Speech Clause restricts government regulation of private speech; it does not regulate government speech. See Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Assn., 544 U. S. 550, 553 (2005) (“[T]he Government’s own speech . . . is exempt from First Amendment scrutiny”); Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Democratic National Committee, 412 U. S. 94, 139, n. 7 (1973) (Stewart, J., concurring) (“Government is not restrained by the First Amendment from controlling its own expression”). A government entity has the right to “speak for itself.” Board of Regents of Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth, 529 U. S. 217, 229 (2000). “[I]t is entitled to say what it wishes,” Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 833 (1995), and to select the views that it wants to express. See Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U. S. 173, 194 (1991); National Endowment for Arts v. Finley, 524 U. S. 569, 598 (1998) (SCALIA, J., concurring injudgment) (“It is the very business of government to favor and disfavor points of view”).

Indeed, it is not easy to imagine how government could function if it lacked this freedom. “If every citizen were to have a right to insist that no one paid by public funds express a view with which he disagreed, debate over issues of great concern to the public would be limited to those in the private sector, and the process of government as we know it radically transformed.” Keller v. State Bar of Cal., 496 U. S. 1, 12–13 (1990). See also Johanns, 544 U. S., at 574 (SOUTER, J., dissenting) (“To govern, government has to say something, and a First Amendment heckler’s veto of any forced contribution to raising the government’s voice in the ‘marketplace of ideas’ would be out of the question” (footnote omitted)).

A government entity may exercise this same freedom to express its views when it receives assistance from privatesources for the purpose of delivering a government-controlled message. See id., at 562 (opinion of the Court) (where the government controls the message, “it is not precluded from relying on the government-speech doctrine merely because it solicits assistance from nongovernmen-tal sources”); Rosenberger, supra, at 833 (a government entity may “regulate the content of what is or is not ex-pressed . . . when it enlists private entities to convey itsown message”).
This does not mean that there are no restraints on government speech. For example, government speech must comport with the Establishment Clause. The involvement of public officials in advocacy may be limited by law, regulation, or practice. And of course, a governmententity is ultimately “accountable to the electorate and the political process for its advocacy.” Southworth, 529 U. S., at 235. “If the citizenry objects, newly elected officialslater could espouse some different or contrary position.” Ibid.

B
While government speech is not restricted by the Free Speech Clause, the government does not have a free hand to regulate private speech on government property. This Court long ago recognized that members of the public retain strong free speech rights when they venture into public streets and parks, “which ‘have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions.’” Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators’ Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 45 (1983) (quoting Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U. S. 496, 515 (1939) (opinion of Roberts, J.)).

In order to preserve this freedom, government entities are strictly limited in their ability to regulate private speech in such “traditional public fora.” Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788, 800 (1985).

Reasonable time, place, and man-ner restrictions are allowed, see Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 45, but any restriction based on the content of the speech must satisfy strict scrutiny, that is, the restriction must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest, see Cornelius, supra, at 800, and restrictions based on viewpoint are prohibited, see Carey v. Brown, 447 U. S. 455, 463 (1980).

With the concept of the traditional public forum as a starting point, this Court has recognized that members of the public have free speech rights on other types of government property and in certain other government programs that share essential attributes of a traditional public forum. We have held that a government entity may create “a designated public forum” if government property that has not traditionally been regarded as a public forum is intentionally opened up for that purpose. See Cornelius, 473 U. S., at 802. Government restrictions on speech in a designated public forum are subject to the same strict scrutiny as restrictions in a traditional public forum. Id., at 800.

The Court has also held that a government entity may create a forum that is limited to use by certain groups or dedicated solely to the discussion of certain subjects. Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 46, n. 7. In such a forum, a government entity may impose restrictions on speech that are reasonable and viewpoint-neutral. See Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U. S. 98, 106–107 (2001).

III
There may be situations in which it is difficult to tell whether a government entity is speaking on its own behalf or is providing a forum for private speech, but this case does not present such a situation. Permanent monuments displayed on public property typically represent govern-ment speech. Governments have long used monuments to speak to the public. Since ancient times, kings, emperors, and other rulers have erected statues of themselves to remind their subjects of their authority and power. Triumphal arches, columns, and other monuments have been built to commemorate military victories and sacrifices and other events of civic importance. A monument, by definition, is a structure that is designed as a means of expression. When a government entity arranges for the construction of a monument, it does so because it wishes to convey some thought or instill some feeling in those who see the structure.

Neither the Court of Appeals nor respondent disputes the obvious proposition that a monument that is commissioned and financed by a government body for placement on public land constitutes government speech.

Just as government-commissioned and government-financed monuments speak for the government, so do privately financed and donated monuments that the government accepts and displays to the public on government land. It certainly is not common for property owners toopen up their property for the installation of permanent monuments that convey a message with which they do not wish to be associated. And because property owners typically do not permit the construction of such monuments on their land, persons who observe donated monuments routinely—and reasonably—interpret them as conveying some message on the property owner’s behalf.

In this context, there is little chance that observers will fail to appreciate the identity of the speaker. This is true whether the monument is located on private property or on public property, such as national, state, or city park land.

We think it is fair to say that throughout our Nation’s history, the general government practice with respect todonated monuments has been one of selective receptivity. A great many of the monuments that adorn the Nation’s public parks were financed with private funds or donated by private parties. Sites managed by the National Park Service contain thousands of privately designed or funded commemorative objects, including the Statue of Liberty,the Marine Corps War Memorial (the Iwo Jima monument), and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. States and cities likewise have received thousands of donated monuments. See, e.g., App. to Brief for International Municipal Lawyers Association as Amicus Curiae 15a–29a (hereinafter IMLA Brief) (listing examples); Brief for American Legion et al. as Amici Curiae 7, and n. 2 (same).

By accepting monuments that are privately funded or donated, government entities save tax dollars and are able to acquire monuments that they could not have afforded to fund on their own. But while government entities regularly accept privately funded or donated monuments, they have exercised selectivity.

An example discussed by the city of New York as amicus curiae is illustrative. In the wake of the contro-versy generated in 1876 when the city turned down a donated monument to honor Daniel Webster, the city adopted rules governing the acceptance of artwork forpermanent placement in city parks, requiring, among other things, that "any proposed gift of art had to be viewed either in its finished condition or as a model before acceptance.” Brief for City of New York as Amicus Curiae 4–5 (hereinafter NYC Brief).

Across the country, “municipalities generally exercise editorial control over donated monuments through prior submission requirements,design input, requested modifications, written criteria, and legislative approvals of specific content proposals.” IMLA Brief 21.

Public parks are often closely identified in the public mind with the government unit that owns the land. City parks — ranging from those in small towns, like Pioneer Park in Pleasant Grove City, to those in major metropolises, like Central Park in New York City — commonly play an important role in defining the identity that a city projects to its own residents and to the outside world. Accordingly, cities and other jurisdictions take some care inaccepting donated monuments.

Government decisionmakers select the monuments that portray what they view asappropriate for the place in question, taking into accountsuch content-based factors as esthetics, history, and localculture. The monuments that are accepted, therefore, are meant to convey and have the effect of conveying a government message, and they thus constitute government speech.

IV
A
In this case, it is clear that the monuments in Pleasant Grove’s Pioneer Park represent government speech. Although many of the monuments were not designed or built by the City and were donated in completed form by private entities, the City decided to accept those donations and to display them in the Park. Respondent does not claim that the City ever opened up the Park for the placement of whatever permanent monuments might be offered by private donors. Rather, the City has “effectively controlled” the messages sent by the monuments in the Parkby exercising “final approval authority” over their selec-tion. Johanns, 544 U. S., at 560–561.

The City has selected those monuments that it wants to display for the purpose of presenting the image of the City that it wishesto project to all who frequent the Park; it has taken ownership of most of the monuments in the Park, including the Ten Commandments monument that is the focus of respondent’s concern; and the City has now expressly set forth the criteria it will use in making future selections.

B
Respondent voices the legitimate concern that the government speech doctrine not be used as a subterfuge for favoring certain private speakers over others based on viewpoint. Respondent’s suggested solution is to require a government entity accepting a privately donated monument to go through a formal process of adopting a resolution publicly embracing “the message” that the monument conveys. See Brief for Respondent 33–34, 57. We see no reason for imposing a requirement of this
sort. The parks of this country contain thousands of donated monuments that government entities have used for their own expressive purposes, usually without producing the sort of formal documentation that respondent now says is required to escape Free Speech Clause restrictions. Requiring all of these jurisdictions to go back and proclaim formally that they adopt all of these monuments as their own expressive vehicles would be a pointless exercise that the Constitution does not mandate.

In this case, for example, although respondent argues that Pleasant Grove City has not adequately “controll[ed] the message,” id., at 31, of the Ten Commandments monument, the City took ownership of that monument and put it on permanent display in a park that it owns and manages and that is linked to the City’s identity. All rights previously possessed by the monument’s donor have been relinquished. The City’s actions provided a more dramatic form of adoption than the sort of formal endorsement that respondent would demand, unmistakably signifying to all Park visitors that the City intends the monument to speak on its behalf. And the City has made no effort to abridge the traditional free speech rights — the right to speak, distribute leaflets, etc. — that may be exercised by respondent and others in Pioneer Park.

What respondent demands, however, is that the City “adopt” or “embrace” “the message” that it associates with the monument. Id., at 33–34, 57. Respondent seems to think that a monument can convey only one “message” — which is, presumably, the message intended by the donor — and that, if a government entity that accepts a monument for placement on its property does not formally embrace that message, then the government has not engaged in expressive conduct.

This argument fundamentally misunderstands the way monuments convey meaning. The meaning conveyed by amonument is generally not a simple one like “‘Beef. It’s
What’s for Dinner.’” Johanns, supra, at 554. Even when a monument features the written word, the monument may be intended to be interpreted, and may in fact be interpreted by different observers, in a variety of ways. Monuments called to our attention by the briefing in this case illustrate this phenomenon.

What, for example, is “the message” of the Greco-Roman mosaic of the word “Imagine” that was donated to New York City’s Central Park in memory of John Lennon? See NYC Brief 18; App. to id., at A5. Some observers may “imagine” the musical contributions that John Lennon would have made if he had not been killed. Others may think of the lyrics of the Lennon song that obviously inspired the mosaic and may “imagine” a world without religion, countries, possessions, greed, or hunger.2
——————
2The lyrics are as follows: “Imagine there’s no heaven It’s easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today...
“Imagine there’s no countriesIt isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace...
“You may say I’m a dreamerBut I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one
“Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world... J. Lennon, Imagine, on Imagine (Apple Records 1971).

Or, to take another example, what is “the message” of the “large bronze statue displaying the word ‘peace’ in many world languages” that is displayed in Fayetteville, Arkansas?

These text-based monuments are almost certain to evoke different thoughts and sentiments in the minds of different observers, and the effect of monuments that do not contain text is likely to be even more variable. Consider, for example, the statue of Pancho Villa that was given to the city of Tucson, Arizona, in 1981 by the Government of Mexico with, according to a Tucson publication, “a wry sense of irony.” Does this statue commemorate a “revolutionary leader who advocated for agrarian reform and the poor” or “a violent bandit”? The Presidio Trail: A Historical Walking Tour of Downtown Tucson, online at http://www.visittucson.org/includes/media/docs/ DowntownTour.pdf.)IMLA Brief 13.

Contrary to respondent’s apparent belief, it frequently is not possible to identify a single “message” that is conveyed by an object or structure, and consequently, the thoughts or sentiments expressed by a government entity that accepts and displays such an object may be quite different from those of either its creator or its donor.5 By accepting ——————



5Museum collections illustrate this phenomenon. Museums display works of art that express many different sentiments, and the significance of a donated work of art to its creator or donor may differ markedly from a museum’s reasons for accepting and displaying the work.For example, a painting of a religious scene may have been commissioned and painted to express religious thoughts and feelings. Even if the painting is donated to the museum by a patron who shares those thoughts and feelings, it does not follow that the museum, by displaying the painting, intends to convey or is perceived as conveying the ... thinking of the monument’s donor or creator. Indeed, when a privately donated memorial is funded by many small donations, the donors themselves may differ in their interpretation of the monument’s significance.

By accepting such a monument, a government entity does not necessarily endorse the specific meaning that any particular donor sees in the monument. The message that a government entity conveys by allowing a monument to remain on its property may also be altered by the subsequent addition of other monuments in the same vicinity.

For example, following controversy over the original design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a compromise was reached that called for the nearby addition of a flagstaff and bronze Three Soldiers statue, which many believed changed the overall effect of the memorial. See, e.g., J. Mayo, War Memorials as Political Landscape: The American Experience and Beyond 202–203, 205(1988); K. Hass, Carried to the Wall: American Memory and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial 15–18 (1998).

The “message” conveyed by a monument may change over time. A study of war memorials found that “people reinterpret” the meaning of these memorials as “historical interpretations” and “the society around them changes.” Mayo, supra, at 8–9.

A striking example of how the interpretation of a monument can evolve is [the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund,] a private organization that obtained funding from over 650,000 donors for the construction of the memorial itself. These donors expressed a wide range of personal sentiments in contributing money for the memorial. See, e.g., J. Scruggs & J. Swerdlow, To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial 23–28, 159 (1985).

[Another] beloved public monument in the United States [is] the Statue of Liberty. The statue was given to this country by the Third French Republic to express republican solidarity and friendship between the two countries. See J. Res. 6, 44th Cong., 2d Sess. (1877), 19 Stat. 410 (accepting the statue as an “expressive and felicitous memorial of the sympathy of the citizens of our sister Republic”).

At the inaugural ceremony, President Cleveland saw the statue as an emblem of international friendship and the widespread influence of American ideals. See Inauguration of the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World 30 (1887). Only later did the statue come to be viewed as a beacon welcoming immigrants to a land of freedom. See Public Papers of the Presidents, Ronald Reagan, Vol. 2, July 3, 1986, pp. 918–919 (1989), Remarks at the Opening Ceremonies of the Statue of Liberty Centennial Celebration in New York, New York; J. Higham, The Transformation of the Statue of Liberty, in Send These To Me 74–80 (rev. ed. 1984).

C
Respondent and the Court of Appeals analogize the installation of permanent monuments in a public park to the delivery of speeches and the holding of marches and demonstrations, and they thus invoke the rule that a public park is a traditional public forum for these activities. But “public forum principles . . . are out of place inthe context of this case.” United States v. American Library Assn., Inc., 539 U. S. 194, 205 (2003). The forum doctrine has been applied in situations in which government-owned property or a government program was capable of accommodating a large number of public speakers without defeating the essential function of the land or the program.

For example, a park can accommodate many speakers and, over time, many parades and demonstrations. The Combined Federal Campaign permits hundreds of groups to solicit donations from federal employees. See Cornelius, 473 U. S., at 804–805.

A public university’sstudent activity fund can provide money for many campus activities. See Rosenberger, 515 U. S., at 825. A public university’s buildings may offer meeting space for hundreds of student groups. See Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263, 274–275 (1981).

A school system’s internal mailfacilities can support the transmission of many messagesto and from teachers and school administrators. See Perry Ed. Assn., 460 U. S., at 39, 46–47. See also Arkansas Ed. Television Comm’n v. Forbes, 523 U. S. 666, 680–681 (1998) (noting that allowing any candidate to participate in a televised political debate would be burdensome on “logistical grounds” and “would result in less speech, not more”).

By contrast, public parks can accommodate only a limited number of permanent monuments. Public parks have been used, “‘time out of mind, . . . for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions,’” Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 45 (quoting Hague, 307 U. S., at 515), but “one would be hard pressed to find a ‘long tradition’ of allowing people to permanently occupy public space with any manner of monuments.” 499 F. 3d, at 1173 (Lucero, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).

Speakers, no matter how long-winded, eventually come to the end of their remarks; persons distributing leaflets and carrying signs at some point tire and go home; monuments, however, endure. They monopolize the use of the land on which they stand and interfere permanently with other uses of public space. A public park, over the years, can provide a soapbox for a very large number of orators — often, for all who want to speak — but it is hard to imagine how a public park could be opened up for the installation of permanent monuments by every person or group wishing to engage in that form of expression.

Respondent contends that this issue “can be dealt with through content-neutral time, place and manner restrictions, including the option of a ban on all unattended displays.” Brief for Respondent 14. On this view, when France presented the Statue of Liberty to the United States in 1884, this country had the option of either (a) declining France’s offer or (b) accepting the gift, but providing a comparable location in the harbor of New York for other statues of a similar size and nature (e.g., a Statue of Autocracy, if one had been offered by, say, the German Empire or Imperial Russia).

While respondent and some of its amici deride the fears expressed about the consequences of the Court of Appeals holding in this case, those concerns are well founded. If government entities must maintain viewpoint neutrality in their selection of donated monuments, they must either “brace themselves for an influx of clutter” or face the pressure to remove longstanding and cherished monuments. See 499 F. 3d, at 1175 (McConnell, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).

Every jurisdiction that has accepted a donated war memorial may be asked to provide equal treatment for a donated monument questioning the cause for which the veterans fought. New York City, having accepted a donated statue of one heroic dog (Balto, the sled dog who brought medicine to Nome, Alaska, during a diphtheria epidemic)7 may be pressed to accept monuments for other dogs who are claimed to be equally worthy of commemoration.

The obvious truth of the matter is that if public parks were considered to be traditional public forums for the purpose of erecting privately donated monuments, most parks would have little choice but to refuse all such donations. And where the application of forum analysis would lead almost inexorably to closing of the forum, it is obvious that forum analysis is out of place.

Respondent compares the present case to Capitol Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U. S. 753 (1995), but that case involved a very different situation - a request by a private group, the Ku Klux Klan, to erect a cross for a period of 16 days on public property that had been opened up for similar temporary displays, including a Christmas tree and a menorah. See id., at 758.

Although some public parks can accommodate and may be made generally available for temporary private displays, the same is rarely true for permanent monuments. To be sure, there are limited circumstances in which the forum doctrine might properly be applied to a permanent monument — for example, if a town created a monument on which all of its residents (or all those meeting some other criterion) could place the name of a person to be honored or some other private message. But as a general matter, forum analysis simply does not apply to the installation of permanent monuments on public property.

V
In sum, we hold that the City’s decision to accept certain privately donated monuments while rejecting respondent’s is best viewed as a form of government speech. As a result, the City’s decision is not subject to the Free Speech Clause, and the Court of Appeals erred in holding otherwise. We therefore reverse.
It is so ordered.
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Cite as: 555 U. S. ____ (2009) 1
STEVENS, J., concurring
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 07–665
PLEASANT GROVE CITY, UTAH, ET AL., PETITIONERS
v. SUMMUM
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
[February 25, 2009]
JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG joins,concurring.
This case involves a property owner’s rejection of an offer to place a permanent display on its land. While I join the Court’s persuasive opinion, I think the reasons justifying the city’s refusal would have been equally valid if its acceptance of the monument, instead of being characterized as “government speech,” had merely been deemed an implicit endorsement of the donor’s message. See Capitol Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U. S. 753, 801–802 (1995) (STEVENS, J., dissenting).

To date, our decisions relying on the recently minted government speech doctrine to uphold government action have been few and, in my view, of doubtful merit. See, e.g., Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U. S. 410 (2006); Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Assn., 544 U. S. 550 (2005); Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U. S. 173 (1991). The Court’s opinion in this case signals no expansion of that doctrine. And by joining the Court’s opinion, I do not mean to indicate agreement with our earlier decisions. Unlike other decisions relying on the government speech doctrine, our decision in this case excuses no retaliation for, or coercion of, private speech. Cf. Garcetti, 547 U. S., at 438 (SOUTER, J., dissenting); Rust, 500 U. S., at 212 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). Nor is it likely, given the near certainty that observers will associate permanent displays with the governmental property owner, that the government will be able to avoid political accountability for the views that it endorses or expresses through this means. Cf. Johanns, 544
U. S., at 571–572 (SOUTER, J., dissenting). Finally, recognizing permanent displays on public property as government speech will not give the government free license to communicate offensive or partisan messages. For even if the Free Speech Clause neither restricts nor protects government speech, government speakers are bound by the Constitution’s other proscriptions, including those supplied by the Establishment and Equal Protection Clauses. Together with the checks imposed by our democratic processes, these constitutional safeguards ensure that the effect of today’s decision will be limited.
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Cite as: 555 U. S. ____ (2009) 1
SCALIA, J., concurring
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 07–665
PLEASANT GROVE CITY, UTAH, ET AL., PETITIONERS
v. SUMMUM
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
[February 25, 2009]
JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins,concurring.
As framed and argued by the parties, this case presents a question under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. I agree with the Court’s analysis of that question and join its opinion in full. But it is also obvious that from the start, the case has been litigated in the shadow of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause: the city wary of associating itself too closely with the Ten Commandments monument displayed in the park, lest that be deemed a breach in the so-called “wall of separation between church and State,” Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 164 (1879); respondent exploiting that hesitation to argue that the monument is not government speech because the city has not sufficiently “adopted” its message. Respondent menacingly observed that while the city could have formally adopted the monument as its own, that “might of course raise Establishment Clause issues.” Brief for Respondent 34, n. 11.

The city ought not fear that today’s victory has propelled it from the Free Speech Clause frying pan into the Establishment Clause fire. Contrary to respondent’s intimations, there are very good reasons to be confident that the park displays do not violate any part of the FirstAmendment.

In Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U. S. 677 (2005), this Court upheld against Establishment Clause challenge a virtually identical Ten Commandments monument, donated by the very same organization (the Fraternal Order of Eagles),which was displayed on the grounds surrounding the Texas State Capitol.

Nothing in that decision suggested that the outcome turned on a finding that the monument was only “private” speech. To the contrary, all the Justices agreed that government speech was at issue, but the Establishment Clause argument was nonetheless rejected. For the plurality, that was because the Ten Command-ments “have an undeniable historical meaning” in addition to their “religious significance,” id., at 690 (opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.). JUSTICE BREYER, concurring in the judgment, agreed that the monument conveyed a permissible secular message, as evidenced by its location in a park that contained multiple monuments and historical markers; by the fact that it had been donated by the Eagles “as part of that organization’s efforts to combat juvenile delinquency”; and by the length of time (40 years) for which the monument had gone unchallenged. Id., at 701–
703. See also id., at 739–740 (SOUTER, J., dissenting).

Even accepting the narrowest reading of the narrowest opinion necessary to the judgment in Van Orden, there is little basis to distinguish the monument in this case: Pioneer Park includes “15 permanent displays,” ante, at 1– 2; it was donated by the Eagles as part of its national effort to combat juvenile delinquency, Brief for Respondent 3; and it was erected in 1971, ibid., which means it is approaching its (momentous!) 40th anniversary.

The city can safely exhale. Its residents and visitors can now return to enjoying Pioneer Park’s wishing well, its historic granary — and, yes, even its Ten Commandments monument — without fear that they are complicit in an establishment of religion.
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Cite as: 555 U. S. ____ (2009) 1
BREYER, J., concurring
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 07–665
PLEASANT GROVE CITY, UTAH, ET AL., PETITIONERS
v. SUMMUM
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
[February 25, 2009]
JUSTICE BREYER, concurring.
I agree with the Court and join its opinion. I do so, however, on the understanding that the “government speech” doctrine is a rule of thumb, not a rigid category. Were the City to discriminate in the selection of permanent monuments on grounds unrelated to the display's theme, say solely on political grounds, its action might well violate the First Amendment.

In my view, courts must apply categories such as “government speech,” “public forums,” “limited public forums,”and “nonpublic forums” with an eye towards their purposes — lest we turn “free speech” doctrine into a jurisprudence of labels. Cf. United States v. Kokinda, 497 U. S. 720, 740–743 (1990) (Brennan, J., dissenting). Consequently, we must sometimes look beyond an initial categorization.

And, in doing so, it helps to ask whether a government action burdens speech disproportionately in light of the action’s tendency to further a legitimate government objective. See, e.g., Ysursa v. Pocatello Ed. Assn., ante, at 1–4 (BREYER, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U.S. 377, 404 (2000) (BREYER, J., concurring).

Were we to do so here, we would find — for reasons that the Court sets forth — that the City’s action, while preventing Summum from erecting its monument, does not disproportionately restrict Summum’s freedom of expression. The City has not closed off its parks to speech; no one claims that the City prevents Summum’s members from engaging in speech in a form more transient than a permanent monument. Rather, the City has simply reserved some space in the park for projects designed to further other than free-speech goals. And that is perfectly proper. After all, parks do not serve speech-related interests alone.

To the contrary, cities use park space to further a variety of recreational, historical, educational, aesthetic,and other civic interests. To reserve to the City the power to pick and choose among proposed monuments according to criteria reasonably related to one or more of these legitimate ends restricts Summum’s expression, but, given the impracticality of alternatives and viewed in light of the City’s legitimate needs, the restriction is not disproportionate. Analyzed either way, as “government speech” or as a proportionate restriction on Summum’s expression, the City’s action here is lawful.
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_________________
Cite as: 555 U. S. ____ (2009) 1
SOUTER, J., concurring in judgment
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 07–665
PLEASANT GROVE CITY, UTAH, ET AL., PETITIONERS
v. SUMMUM
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
[February 25, 2009]
JUSTICE SOUTER, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the Court that the Ten Commandments monument is government speech, that is, an expression of a government’s position on the moral and religious issues raised by the subject of the monument. See Board of Regents of Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth, 529 U. S. 217, 235 (2000) (noting government speech may “promote[government’s] own policies or . . . advance a particular idea”). And although the government should lose when the character of the speech is at issue and its governmental nature has not been made clear, see Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Assn., 544 U. S. 550, 577 (2005) (SOUTER, J., dissenting), I also agree with the Court that the city need not satisfy the particular formality urged by Summum as a condition of recognizing that the expression here falls within the public category. I have qualms,however, about accepting the position that public monuments are government speech categorically. See ante, at 8 (“Just as government-commissioned and government-financed monuments speak for the government, so do privately financed and donated monuments that the government accepts and displays to the public on government land”).

Because the government speech doctrine, as JUSTICE STEVENS notes, ante, at 1 (concurring opinion), is “recently minted,” it would do well for us to go slow in setting its bounds, which will affect existing doctrine in ways not yet explored. Even though, for example, Establishment Clause issues have been neither raised nor briefed before us, there is no doubt that this case and its government speech claim has been litigated by the parties with one eye on the Establishment Clause, see ante, at 1 (SCALIA, J., concurring). The interaction between the “government speech doctrine” and Establishment Clause principles has not, however, begun to be worked out.

The case shows that it may not be easy to work out. After today’s decision, whenever a government maintains a monument it will presumably be understood to be engaging in government speech. If the monument has some religious character, the specter of violating the Establishment Clause will behoove it to take care to avoid the ap-pearance of a flat-out establishment of religion, in the sense of the government’s adoption of the tenets expressed or symbolized. In such an instance, there will be safety in numbers, and it will be in the interest of a careful government to accept other monuments to stand nearby, to dilute the appearance of adopting whatever particular religious position the single example alone might stand for. As mementoes and testimonials pile up, however, the chatter may well make it less intuitively obvious that the government is speaking in its own right simply by maintaining the monuments.

If a case like that occurred, as suspicion grew that some of the permanent displays were not government speech at all (or at least had an equally private character associated with private donors), a further Establishment Clause prohibition would surface, the bar against preferring some religious speakers over others. See Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 113 (1985) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (“The Clause was also designed to stop the Federal Government from asserting a preference for one religious denomination or sect over others”).

But the government could well argue, as a development of government speech doctrine, that when it expresses its own views, it is free of the Establishment Clause’s stricture against discriminating among religious sects or groups. Under this view of the relationship between the two doctrines, it would be easy for a government to favor some private religious speakers over others by its choice of monuments to accept.

Whether that view turns out to be sound is more than I can say at this point. It is simply unclear how the relatively new category of government speech will relate to the more traditional categories of Establishment Clause analysis, and this case is not an occasion to speculate. It is an occasion, however, to try to keep the inevitable issues open, and as simple as they can be. One way to do that is to recognize that there are circumstances in which government maintenance of monuments does not look like government speech at all. Sectarian identifications on markers in Arlington Cemetery come to mind. And to recognize that is to forgo any categorical rule at this point.

To avoid relying on a per se rule to say when speech is governmental, the best approach that occurs to me is to ask whether a reasonable and fully informed observer would understand the expression to be government speech, as distinct from private speech the government chooses to oblige by allowing the monument to be placed on public land. This reasonable observer test for governmental character is of a piece with the one for spotting forbidden governmental endorsement of religion in the Establishment Clause cases. See, e.g., County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U. S. 573, 630, 635–636 (1989)(O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judg-ment). The adoption of it would thus serve coherence within Establishment Clause law, and it would make sense of our common understanding that some monuments on public land display religious symbolism thatclearly does not express a government’s chosen views.

Application of this observer test provides the reason I find the monument here to be government expression.