If One Religion, Why Not All Religions?

A Salt Lake City suburb has a monument of the Ten Commandments in a public place. That’s OK because it was donated by a private group. So now a self-described New Age Gnostic group called Summum has donated a monument inscribed with its Seven Aphorisms. A court ruled that the city had to give equal time and allow the Summum monument to be displayed. Now the appeal has reached the Supreme Court. From Display of Religious Tenets Debated – washingtonpost.com:

That [lower court] decision ordered Pleasant Grove to put up the Seven Aphorisms, saying a city cannot accept one privately donated monument but reject another if it disagrees with that group’s message.

If that decision stands, opponents argue, governments could be forced to erect monuments some would find highly objectionable — a memorial to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, for example, might stand alongside a commemoration of al-Qaeda.

“When you have a Statue of Liberty, would you have to have a Statue of Despotism?” Roberts asked.

I blogged about this case some time ago, but now that it is being argued before the Supreme Court, it deserves further consideration. For your edification, I post the Seven Aphorisms below.

Is there any kind of criteria that would pass Constitutional muster that would allow for the Ten Commandments of the Jews and Christians, but not the Seven Aphorisms of the Summumites? If not, would it be better not to have any religious monuments than to emulate the altars to many gods that St. Paul confronted in ancient Athens?

HT: FW