The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously against a New-Age sect that sued to force the town of Pleasant Grove, Utah to place a monument inscribed with the 7 Aphorisms of Summum in a city park, complementing a monument already in the park that displays the 10 Commandments. Full story in the NY Times, “Court Denies a Religion Its Monument in a Park.” Wow, there are just so many angles to cover here.

First, is it, as the NY Times seems to concede, a religion? That is, do its adherents have a sincere belief in the tenets they proclaim? Spend some time at their website and you might come away with the impression this is just a Utah version of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Summum apparently offers mummification (for you or your pet), sells wine or “sacerdotal nectar,” and has built a small pyramid in some lucky Salt Lake City neighborhood. Don’t miss the kids page. I’m guessing this weekend small groups of Summumites will be gathering to share a few bottles of sacerdotal nectar and have a few laughs that their case went this far, maybe pausing every few minutes to throw a few more chemicals in Fido’s mummification vat.

As for the legal case (see quick summary here), it was argued as a free speech case, not a free exercise of religion case. In particular, the Court held that the town’s refusal to host the proposed Summum monument was a permissable exercise of discretionary governmental speech which did not infringe Summum’s free speech rights. For the policy argument that seems to be the primary consideration in how the case was decided, see this Mother Jones article, “The Summum of All Fears,” pointing out that if the 7 Aphorisms get in, so do lots of other more objectionable items.

The case for Pleasant Grove was argued by Jay Sekulow, who is one-half of a popular Beliefnet blog. He has posted his comments on the case in a post titled “Supreme Court Gets It Right — Religious Displays OK.”