FOX News - Supreme Court Comes Down on Side of Ten Commandments

FOX SPECIAL REPORT WITH BRET BAIER

BRET BAIER:  The highest court in the land has come down on the side of one of history's most famous lists of rules. Correspondent Shannon Bream has the story of a city, a small religious sect, and the 10 Commandments.

SHANNON BREAM, FOX NEWS  CORRESPONDENT: In a nine to zero opinion issued Wednesday, the Supreme Court gave new support to cities that want to accept and display 10 commandments monuments without being forced to do the same for any and all other groups that want to make a permanent statement as well.

Justice Samuel Alito offered the opinion, finding that a 10 Commandments display in a Utah City Park is government speech, and therefore not subject to first amendment scrutiny.

JAY SEKULOW, AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE: I think the American people are the big winner today, because what it does is it lets communities express their heritage without the fear of counterproposals.

You don't have to put a statue of tyranny next to the Statue of Liberty. You don't have to put up next to the VFW monument to the veterans, you don't have to put up an antiwar monument.

BREAM: Since 2003 Summum, a little known religious group with tenets such as "everything vibrates," has been fighting to force Pleasantgrove City, Utah, to place its display in a city park next to a 10 commandments monument donated by a private group.

But in the opinion, Justice Alito wrote, quote, "Because city parks play an important role in defining the identity a city projects to the residents and outside world, cities take car in accepting donated monuments.

The accepted monuments have the effect of conveying a government message and thus constitute government speech."

Critics of today's opinion say they're greatly concerned about this decision, that it gives government entities license to pick and choose which religious groups they will favor.

MARC STERN, AMERICAN JEWISH CONGRESS ATTORNEY: The very act of choosing which religious symbols are part of the culture and which are marginal and can be excluded is itself the sort of favoritism that the constitution shouldn't be allowing.

BREAM: The court will consider a similar case in the coming months when it must decide what to do about a World War I memorial in the shape of a cross that now sits on public land in the Mojave Desert.

The ninth circuit has ruled that the display is unconstitutional, and, for now, it sits covered by a plywood box awaiting the Supreme Court's decision.

In Washington, Shannon Bream, FOX News.