Salt Lake City, USA - The Society of Separationists wants to give up its long battle to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a Pleasant Grove park.
On Thursday, a lawyer for the society asked a federal judge to dismiss its lawsuit, which sought to remove the monument, but to also preserve the group's right to potentially sue the city again on the same issue.
The request by attorney Brian Barnard came about seven months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on public property. In June, the high court said framed copies of the Ten Commandments in a Kentucky courthouse violated the separation of church and state because they promoted religion. But the Supreme Court justices also said that a monument at the Texas state Capitol could stay because, as one of about 40 markers and monuments at the site, it has a secular and historical purpose.
The Ten Commandments display is one of many monuments in the Pleasant Grove park.
Edward White, an attorney with the Thomas More Law Center, who is representing the city, had no objection to the dismissal. But he asked U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins to dismiss the case with prejudice, which usually bars any future action. Jenkins took the issue under consideration.
Barnard stressed that although his clients - the Society of Separationists and two individuals - have decided not to pursue the case, they are not conceding that the Pleasant Grove monument is constitutional. They might want to reopen the case later in state court if there are any violations of the Utah Constitution's establishment clause, which forbids aiding one religion over another, he said outside court.
In addition, Barnard said the society achieved a major goal when the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver overturned a 1973 ruling in a similar Utah case. The earlier ruling had held the Ten Commandments are primarily secular, not religious, and did not tend to establish religious belief. That appeals court decision, handed down last year, sent the Society of Separationists lawsuit back to Jenkins, who had earlier dismissed the case.