Pat Robertson’s lawyers fight for less religion in the public square

February 3, 2006

Ever since the Supreme Court kinda sorta said local governments can promote Ten Commandments displays on public property, religious right activists have made concerted efforts to get more “religion in the public square” with more religious monuments. But in one very interesting case in Utah, these same activists suddenly want less religion in public, not more.

In Pleasant Grove, Utah, a Ten Commandments memorial, donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1971, sits in a secluded area of city property that is intended to honor the city’s heritage. Pleasant Grove is now facing litigation about the display, not from civil libertarians, but from another religious group that wants equal treatment.

The question of whether the Salt Lake City religious group Summum can place a monument bearing its seven aphorisms in a Pleasant Grove park is headed for trial. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Dee Benson denied Summum’s motion to find in the group’s favor without a trial.

I’m not an expert in the Summum, but as I understand it, the group’s Aphorisms include statements such as “Summum is Mind, Thought; the Universe is a Mental Creation,” and “Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates,” and “As above, so below; as below, so above.” I haven’t a clue what any of this means, but that’s not really the point.

These people see one religious tradition’s sacred text endorsed in public and they’d like their beliefs to receive similar support. It’s not an unreasonable argument. Local officials clearly disagree, and have fought the Summum over its proposed monument for years.

But here’s the funny part: Pleasant Grove is now getting legal assistance from TV preacher Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice.

Yes, the legal group that brags about its efforts to get state-sponsored religion on public property is helping a local government keep a religious group from erecting a religious monument. The irony is rich.

The ACLJ and the rest of the religious right insist that we need more religion in the “public square.” The Summum agree. Christian activists respond, “Uh, we didn’t mean you guys.”

It’s a helpful reminder — when these guys talk about more state-sponsored religion, they’re talking about their religion.

CB,

Don’t you know? There is only one true religion… Power

  • I like their philosophy: “everything vibrates.” It’s . . . comforting, somehow.

    It’s time for a public monument — somewhere, anywhere — honoring Bob Dobbs and the Church of the Subgenius.

    Give us slack or kill us.

  • The best part is that Pat Robertson claims that Christianity is the majority religion of this country, and thus must be given pre-eminent position…

    …while at the same time condeming Catholics, Episcopalians and a great number of other Protestant denominations.

    Try counting the number of people Pat or Jerry Fawell think can go to heaven, and you have a tinny-tiny minority.

    Never let these people suggest they represent a majority of America.

  • I always thought the way to defuse Judge Roy Moore was to offer to place a similar rock with the Islamic equivalent, and Buddhist, and etc…

    Would hoist them on their own petard.

  • We need to get the Pastafarians in on this action. Imagine a statue of a midget pirate atop a block of marble with the inscription, “We are all touched by his noodly appendage”…

  • Lance,

    You must remember that there is a reason for the tiny majority. After all, heaven is a (pearly) gated community with a guard (St. Peter) that only lets in the “right” type of individual. You don’t want property values to drop do you?

  • “I always thought the way to defuse Judge Roy Moore was to offer to place a similar rock with the Islamic equivalent, and Buddhist, and etc…”
    VOR

    Or actually create a public park with the specific intention and invitation to allow all faiths and all religions to place a monument of some sort (regulations for maximum size/shape/nothing truly “profane”).

  • But, but Bubba – your definition of ‘profane’ may not match mine. What if my religion venerates human genitalia as the source of all wisdom (which is true anyways 🙂 )…. would not a over-life size statue of such be offensive to all you non-believers.

    Snark, snarky-snark, snark, snark

  • The irony of this, of course, is this is precisely why the 1st amendment outlaws establishment of religion. So, in the name of freedom of expression, the government winds up setting up exactly the situation that the establishment clause was designed to prohibit.

    I really this this is ultimately a failure of the education system. The vast majority of Americans simply have no idea about the basic ideas our country was founded on. If we don’t have a public that believes the Constitution is worth preserving, it will be impossible to preserve it.

  • The people in the the lovely and liberal Long Island town where I live in support cultural diversity and promote religous tolerance of every creed with their pocketbooks. Interestingly enough, Sean Hannity chooses to live here.

    For as long as I can remember, every December the town put white lights and red bows on the big evergreen in the village square on Main Street and erected a “Peace on Earth” sign next to it. Across the street, still part of the village square, the town put up the big menorah with blue lights.

    This year, for some unknown reason, the town put up a nativity scene and a menorah next to the big evergreen. Sure as shooting, some loudmouthed lawyer complained that the menorah was dwarfed by the nativity scene and hence, claimed religous discriminatio and said the town was wrong to use town employees to construct the display. To top it off, the troublemaker claimed that “Peace On Earth” was an inappropriate religous message.

    Of course, the story made the front page of Newsday and this idiot had his day in the media spotlight. He ultimately withdrew his complaint when the town agreed to post hideously ugly signs next to the display which announced that the menorah was donated by a Lubavitch congregation and the nativity scene was donated by the, I think, the Presbyterians.

    I was troubled by the controversy because I used to think of this sort of issue as being confined to somewhere else where all of the narrow-minded people live. Wrong.

  • What if my religion venerates human genitalia as the source of all wisdom

    Google on ‘yoni’ and ‘lingam’.

  • “You must remember that there is a reason for the tiny majority. After all, heaven is a (pearly) gated community with a guard (St. Peter) that only lets in the “right” type of individual. You don’t want property values to drop do you?”

    Suggestion for all Democratic politicans under attack from the likes of Fawell, Dobson or Robertson.

    Ask all the Roman Catholics at a rally to raise their hands, then ask the Episcopalians. Then add all the other denominations that Jerry, James and Pat have trashed over the years. You should have a majority of the room before you even get to the Jews, Muslims, Hindu, Buddists,

    Atheists, Agnostics, …..

    Etc.,

    Tell them if they’ll go with you in November, you’ll be happy to go with them at the end.

    Then suggest anyone who Jerry is taking along with him and go with your opponent.

    You’ll win in a landslide.

  • Definition: Summum: A rather smallish collection of individuals who could probably be defined as a Neopagan reconstructionist effort of various ancient Egyptian theological venues, but have it in their heads that their “contemporary” religion is somehow thousands of years older than other religions.

    Now, I’m not saying that these folks ought to be denied their place in the park (to deny one religious philosophy necessitates the potential denial of all philosophies; and personally, I like to call for Pat Robertson’s assassination on a daily basis—it goes so well with that morning cup of coffee!), but…have you examined the gobbledygook on Summum’s website? Some of it reads like a carnival fortune-teller’s script.

    What Summum has done, if I’m looking at this correctly, it to incorporate part of the death-cult core from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, some aspects of mummification techniques, portions of Neopagan philosophies that establish the belief in “There is no Matter; only Energy,” and the modern quantum-physics discussions on String Theory.

    Now, each of these pieces/parts can be viewed as a valid subcomponent of a respective thought-regimen, but it’s kind of stretching it a wee bit (at least to me) to take straight-line pieces/parts of four different squares—and call it a circle. And even if you bend the straight lines to get the curvature, it still incorporates facets that are still in the early stages of discovery—certainly not “thousands of years old.”

  • Why doesn’t Pat Robertson realize that God is for seperation of church and state?
    Karl Faye Tucker was radically born again, but that did not stop God from letting her be executed for her crime/sin of murder. And that after much prayer was offered by Robertson and other Christians.
    If God was as Robertson presents him; a God who shoves his way into every public place, believe me the country and world would pray and reverence God. And Tucker would not have died.
    “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” is precisely what Jesus said.
    I also think God is after the whole world, not the Ten Commandments on a wall in a courthouse to please the religious right.
    His laws are written in our hearts anyway.
    Christianity is the only way to heaven, and it is in no danger of being overuled by the pagan beliefs. The Holy Scriptures are safe.

  • Christianity is the only way to heaven, and it is in no danger of being overuled by the pagan beliefs. The Holy Scriptures are safe.

    Gee, thanks for that little bit of advice. This is surely news to me. But I was reading something yesterday about Islam, and they said exactly the same thing about their religion and the Koran. Which one is right, I wonder?

    Oh, I know it’s politically incorrect to take issue with a Christian who’s FOR separation of church and state. But I happen to be against phony certitude, and I believe that tolerating it is a disservice to humanity. As Sam Harris so succinctly stated in his excellent book The End of Faith: “If our polls are to be trusted, nearly 230 million Americans believe that a book showing neither unity of style nor internal consistency was authored by an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent deity. A survey of Hindus, Muslims, and Jews around the world would surely yield similar results, revealing that we, as a species, have grown almost perfectly intoxicated by our myths. How is it that, in this one area of our lives, we have convinced ourselves that our beliefs about the world can float entirely free of reason and evidence?”

    How indeed…

  • Why does Pat have a bug in a woman’s house?She was a victim of crime.The people that did it drugged her and took her out of her home,took porn pictures of her.I hear she has been harassed ever since.Her husband is involved with it.A certain person who will not be mentioned here threatened her and his “daughter”took all of the money out if the bank account.

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