A sexual assault on a middle school student that resulted in the arrest of two schoolmates and campus workshops on sexual harassment prevention didn’t warrant notification of all parents, a spokesman told KCBS radio and the Vallejo Times Herald. (Listen to the KCBS report here.)

VCUSD kept mum after assault on girl
By TONY BURCHYNS/Times-Herald staff writer
Posted: 11/18/2008 02:03:32 AM PST

Vallejo school district officials say not telling parents about a sexual assault was the right thing to do, although the news broke on TV last Friday.

The attack happened about three weeks ago. A female Vallejo Middle School student allegedly was forced to perform oral sex on a male student in broad daylight, Vallejo City Unified School District spokesman Jason Hodge said Monday.

The attack occurred after school and apparently was witnessed by students. But the district opted not to notify parents, even after two students were later arrested and face expulsion and felony charges.

“We didn’t feel like other students were in danger,” Hodge said. “It was an isolated incident that didn’t jeopardize the health and safety of any other students. And we’re standing by that.”

Additionally, Hodge said administrators had protected the victim’s privacy by not publicizing the incident.

He also said the attack happened off campus, although the tennis courts are part of the Vallejo High campus.

School district officials said they are addressing the issue of sexual harassment through assemblies. But it was unclear Monday whether many students knew a fellow student had been sexually assaulted.

Three students standing outside the school said Monday they recalled hearing someone had been arrested, but knew nothing of the incident.

CBS reported that parents were “outraged” by the lack of notification. But only one parent had been interviewed, and Hodge said the superintendent’s office had not received any criticism or complaints over its handling of the issue. 

The New York Police Department has been sued by three online journalists who are challenging the city’s procedures for credentialing--giving press passes and press identification to--journalists. Press passes are given to a “full-time employee of a news-gathering organization covering spot or breaking news on a regular basis . . .,” according to city regulations. Press IDs are for journalists who are “employed by a legitimate news organization” but who do “not normally cover spot or breaking news events.” The suit alleges violations of First Amendment rights.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/nypd-is-sued-over-denial-of-press-credentials/” title="New York Times">New York Times
November 12, 2008, 5:38 pm
By Sewell Chan

In the ever-shifting media landscape of 2008, who, exactly, is a journalist?

That question is at the heart of a lawsuit filed against the Police Department on Wednesday on behalf of three men — Rafael Martínez Alequin, Ralph E. Smith and David Wallis — who say that they were unfairly denied press passes because they work for online or nontraditional news outlets.

The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, asserts that the three men were denied press credentials in 2007 “with little explanation or opportunity for appeal,” and that the system for issuing press credentials is “inconsistent and constitutionally flawed.”

“The system of granting press credentials in New York City has run amok and needs to be changed immediately,” Norman Siegel, the civil-liberties lawyer, who is representing the three men in the complaint, said in a phone interview. “The right of a free press is a cornerstone of our constitutional system, and it’s a right that must be respected.”

Gabriel Taussig, chief of the administrative law division at the city’s Law Department, said in a statement:

The issuance of N.Y.P.D. press passes strikes an appropriate balance between First Amendment concerns and public safety. We just received the complaint and are investigating the plaintiff’s concerns thoroughly.

The Police Department issues two kinds of credentials: working press cards, for a “full-time employee of a news-gathering organization covering spot or breaking news on a regular basis such as robbery scenes, fires, homicides, train wrecks, bombings, plane crashes, where there are established police or fire lines at the scene,” and press identification cards, for journalists who are “employed by a legitimate news organization” but who do “not normally cover spot or breaking news events.” (The language is from the city’s official rules and regulations.)

The working press card ostensibly allows the journalist to cross police lines at emergencies and at nonemergency public events, like parades and demonstrations; the press identification card is “issued as a courtesy” but does not carry such privileges. Each card must be renewed annually.

The three men have varied journalistic practices.

Mr. Wallis is the founder of featurewell.com, a syndication service that provides news coverage to 1,500 publication worldwide, including The Guardian, The Irish Examiner, The Australian Financial Review and The New Zealand Herald. According to the lawsuit, Mr. Wallis had a press identification card off and on from 1994 until August 2007, when his petition to obtain the card again was denied without explanation.

Mr. Smith is published of The Guardian Chronicle, a Web site for black law enforcement workers. He has been a public information officer for the city’s Correction Department since 1988, and had a press credential from 1996 until January 2007, when his application to renew the credential was denied. Despite several attempts to get a written explanation for the denial, Mr. Smith has not received one, the suit says.

The case of Mr. Martínez Alequin, a longtime City Hall gadfly, has already been chronicled in the press. He published The Brooklyn Free Press from 1983 to 2001, when he ceased publication after the death of his wife. Then he launched an online publication, The New York City Free Press, in 2003, and began a related blog, Your Free Press, in 2007. He had a working press card from 1986 to 2000 and again from 2005 to 2006.

In May 2007, his application to renew it was denied, and from April to June of that year, the suit says, he was barred from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s news conferences in the Blue Room at City Hall because he lacked a press credential. Mr. Martínez Alequin has been a frequent critic of the mayor; he has since been allowed to attend news conference, but has not been called upon to ask questions.

The lawsuit asserts that the Police Department violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of the right of freedom of speech and of the press; the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of due process of law and equal protection; and the State Constitution’s guarantee of press freedom. The suit asks the court to find the regulations governing press badges to be “unconstitutionally vague”; to bar the Police Department from denying press credentials “in the same manner they have done to the plaintiffs therein”; and to award compensatory and punitive damages.

* Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Like many executives in his generation, President-elect Barack Obama is addicted to his BlackBerry, using it for near-constant communication by text messaging and email. Because many of those communications may be subject to the federal Freedom of Information Act, Obama is being advised to give up his PDA. This was not an issue for Obama the Senator, as Congress conveniently exempted itself from FOIA. But the President is covered.

The New York Times
November 16, 2008
By JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON — Sorry, Mr. President. Please surrender your BlackBerry.

Those are seven words President-elect Barack Obama is dreading but expecting to hear, friends and advisers say, when he takes office in 65 days.

For years, like legions of other professionals, Mr. Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry. The device has rarely been far from his side — on most days, it was fastened to his belt — to provide a singular conduit to the outside world as the bubble around him grew tighter and tighter throughout his campaign.

“How about that?” Mr. Obama replied to a friend’s congratulatory e-mail message on the night of his victory.

But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.

For all the perquisites and power afforded the president, the chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive. Mr. Obama, however, seems intent on pulling the office at least partly into the 21st century on that score; aides said he hopes to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office, making him the first American president to do so.

Mr. Obama has not sent a farewell dispatch from the personal e-mail account he uses — he has not changed his address in years — but friends say the frequency of correspondence has diminished. In recent days, though, he has been seen typing his thoughts on transition matters and other items on his BlackBerry, bypassing, at least temporarily, the bureaucracy that is quickly encircling him.

A year ago, when many Democratic contributors and other observers were worried about his prospects against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, they reached out to him directly. Mr. Obama had changed his cellphone number, so e-mail remained the most reliable way of communicating directly with him.

“His BlackBerry was constantly crackling with e-mails,” said David Axelrod, the campaign’s chief strategist. “People were generous with their advice — much of it conflicting.”

Mr. Obama is the second president to grapple with the idea of this self-imposed isolation. Three days before his first inauguration, George W. Bush sent a message to 42 friends and relatives that explained his predicament.

“Since I do not want my private conversations looked at by those out to embarrass, the only course of action is not to correspond in cyberspace,” Mr. Bush wrote from his old address, G94B@aol.com . “This saddens me. I have enjoyed conversing with each of you.”

But in the interceding eight years, as BlackBerrys have become ubiquitous — and often less intrusive than a telephone, the volume of e-mail has multiplied and the role of technology has matured. Mr. Obama used e-mail to stay in constant touch with friends from the lonely confines of the road, often sending messages like “Sox!” when the Chicago White Sox won a game. He also relied on e-mail to keep abreast of the rapid whirl of events on a given campaign day.

Mr. Obama’s memorandums and briefing books were seldom printed out and delivered to his house or hotel room, aides said. They were simply sent to his BlackBerry for his review. If a document was too long, he would read and respond from his laptop computer, often putting his editing changes in red type.

His messages to advisers and friends, they say, are generally crisp, properly spelled and free of symbols or emoticons. The time stamps provided a window into how much he was sleeping on a given night, with messages often being sent to staff members at 1 a.m. or as late as 3 a.m. if he was working on an important speech.

He received a scaled-down list of news clippings, with his advisers wanting to keep him from reading blogs and news updates all day long, yet aides said he still seemed to hear about nearly everything in real time. A network of friends — some from college, others from Chicago and various chapters in his life — promised to keep him plugged in.

Not having such a ready line to that network, staff members who spent countless hours with him say, is likely to be a challenge.

“Given how important it is for him to get unfiltered information from as many sources as possible, I can imagine he will miss that freedom,” said Linda Douglass, a senior adviser who traveled with the campaign.

Mr. Obama has, for at least brief moments, been forced offline. As he sat down with a small circle of advisers to prepare for debates with Senator John McCain, one rule was quickly established: No BlackBerrys. Mr. Axelrod ordered everyone to put their devices in the center of a table during work sessions. Mr. Obama, who was known to sneak a peek at his, was no exception.

In the closing stages of the campaign, as exhaustion set in and the workload increased, aides said Mr. Obama spent more time reading than responding to messages. As his team prepares a final judgment on whether he can keep using e-mail, perhaps even in a read-only fashion, several authorities in presidential communication said they believed it was highly unlikely that he would be able to do so.

Diana Owen, who leads the American Studies program at Georgetown University, said presidents were not advised to use e-mail because of security risks and fear that messages could be intercepted.

“They could come up with some bulletproof way of protecting his e-mail and digital correspondence, but anything can be hacked,” said Ms. Owen, who has studied how presidents communicate in the Internet era. “The nature of the president’s job is that others can use e-mail for him.”

She added: “It’s a time burner. It might be easier for him to say, ‘I can’t be on e-mail.’ ”

Should Mr. Obama want to break ground and become the first president to fire off e-mail messages from the West Wing and wherever he travels, he could turn to Al Gore as a model. In the later years of his vice presidency, Democrats said, Mr. Gore used a government e-mail address and a campaign address in his race against Mr. Bush.

The president, though, faces far greater public scrutiny. And even if he does not wear a BlackBerry on his belt or carry a cellphone in his pocket, he almost certainly will not lack from a variety of new communication.

On Saturday, as Mr. Obama broadcast the weekly Democratic radio address, it came with a twist. For the first time, it was also videotaped and will be archived on YouTube.

Copyright New York Times 2008

The artistic director of a musical theater resigns after campaign disclosures show that he contributed to the Prop. 8 campaign to ban same-sex marriage. A dispute ensues over the balancing act between free speech and civil rights, the Sacramento Bee reports.

Theater felt growing pressure before artistic director quit
mcrowder@sacbee.com
Published Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008

The California Musical Theatre found itaself caught in a dramatic conflict between free speech and civil rights, a situation that ultimately led to today’s resignation of artistic director Scott Eckern.

Eckern quit this morning. He became the target of strong criticism after it was learned he donated $1,000 to the Proposition 8 campaign to ban gay marriage.

In an industry long considered gay-friendly and tied to causes such as AIDS research, Eckern’s donation outraged theater workers across the country.

In Sacramento, a number of the musical theater’s supporters contacted The Bee to rally behind the embattled Eckern, stating that he was now a victim of intolerance and persecution himself.

Playbill and other media have said he issued an apology and plans to donate $1,000 to a nonprofit committed to achieving equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

When Tony Award-winner Marc Shaiman, the composer of “Hairspray,” read of Eckern’s donation last week, he urged artists and theater workers across the country to boycott the theater.

On Tuesday, Kellie Randle and a group of like-minded friends launched http://www.supportscotteckern.blogspot.com to advocate for Eckern.

“It’s everyone’s First Amendment right to contribute to the causes they believe in and voice their political choice,” Randle said. To show the abuse against Eckern, Randle’s site links to the Clyde Fitch Report, one of numerous blogs now weighing in on the debate.

“I’m so enraged at the hypocrisy of the No on 8 community. I could care less how he voted on any issue. It’s about what he does in his job. This is persecution,” Randle said.

Other community members, including Kitty Wilson of Curtis Park, echoed this sentiment.

“Before any gay person talks about blacklisting anyone in theater, I’ll remind them what McCarthy’s blacklist did to the entire entertainment industry,” Wilson said.

The idea of a blacklist and boycott have grown from Shaiman’s postings and e-mails. The composer, who is openly gay, said he read about Eckern’s contribution to the campaign on the Web site http://www.datalounge.com, and he felt he had to do something.

“I was so shocked. I’m dealing myself with being legally discriminated against, and then come to find out, I helped put money in his pocket that helped get this proposition passed,” Shaiman said in a telephone interview.

Shaiman sent an e-mail which has reverberated through the national theater community and backed the CMT’s leaders into the unusual position of doing damage control. He wrote he wouldn’t allow his work to be done at California Musical Theatre, and theater workers around the country have followed his lead.

“No one should be surprised in 2008 at how fast information can be spread, and that’s of course a doubled-edged sword,” Shaiman said.

Susan Egan, star of “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and “Cabaret,” followed with a similar e-mail.

Theater professionals flooded CMT’s offices over the weekend with phone calls and e-mails decrying Eckern’s actions.

In a statement released Monday, CMT executive producer Richard Lewis said: “Any political action or the opinion of Scott Eckern is not shared by California Musical Theatre. We have a long history of appreciation for the LGBT community and are truly grateful for their longstanding support.”

New York talent agent Chris Nichols, who negotiated three of the four contracts for the actors employed in CMT’s “Forever Plaid” at the Cosmopolitan Cabaret in Sacramento, said New York is watching the situation closely.

“I woke up to Susan Egan’s e-mail Monday morning and have received that e-mail 11 times in less than 48 hours,” Nichols said. “I would say the industry is buzzing. I took no less than half a dozen phone calls from clients today who are working in various theaters across the country asking if it was true.”

Frank Schubert, the local campaign manager for Yes on Prop. 8, wrote a letter of support for Eckern on Tuesday, faxing it to all of CMT’s board members.

“Mr. Eckern unfortunately is the victim of what appears to be a systematic attempt to harass and intimidate anybody who had the courage to stand up and support traditional marriage,” Schubert said by phone. “There’s nothing about supporting traditional marriage which is anti-gay.”

Shaiman hopes the episode leads to better understanding of gay people.

“I love God. And this is how God made me,” he said. “How people can say this is a choice? Unless you are – you don’t know.”

By Ben Baeder, Staff Writer
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
11/07/2008

WEST COVINA - Politics at City Hall are getting personal.

Over the past two months, a councilman has sought police protection at public meetings, alleging he’s been intimidated by fellow council members.

And two top city staff members filed complaints about the same councilman, with one demanding $3 million and a guarantee he won’t be fired until he is 60.

At the center of all the complaints is Councilman Roger Hernandez, who claims it is his right to manage city employees, questioning the value of their work and their ethics as needed.

“The people elected me to do what I think is right for the city,” Hernandez said. “The ethics of the city staff are my responsibility.”

Hernandez’s complaints about city staffers have upset his fellow council members, he said.

After a closed-session meeting on Sept. 2, Hernandez told the city’s police chief that council members Mike Touhey and Steve Herfert physically intimidated him.

“Mr. Hernandez informed me that for the past several months he has felt very unsafe during closed-session meetings,” wrote West Covina police Chief Frank Wills in a Sept. 10 memo.

Touhey never touched Hernandez but “often invades his personal space and points a finger very close to his head or chest while in an agitated state,” Wills noted in the memo.

Hernandez also said Herfert “made him fear for his personal safety” and threatened to “get” him, according to the memo.

Hernandez asked Wills that a police officer be present during closed-session meetings.

Herfert and Touhey said nothing close to intimidation ever took place at a closed-session meeting.

Touhey said he and Hernandez have been at several events together since Sept. 2.

“If he was so afraid of me, why does he sit right next to me?” Touhey said.

Herfert said the whole discussion of threats is absurd.

“Every time (Hernandez) has a problem, he basically blames it on someone else,” Herfert said. “We’ve never had (physically) confrontational closed sessions. I’ve never threatened Roger, and he has never threatened me.”

Three weeks after the argument in the Sept. 2 closed session, Community Development Director Chris Chung demanded $3 million related to a claim he made a year ago. In Chung’s complaint, he says he deserves $3 million because of a hostile work environment created by Hernandez.

Chung claims that Hernandez, over the past two years, has publicly and privately criticized development deals overseen by Chung. He also claimed that Hernandez cussed at him.

Chung has diabetes, high blood pressure and an ulcer because of his dealings with Hernandez, said Victor Jacobovitz, Chung’s attorney.

“In this situation, our client’s condition has been drastically affected by the conduct of Mr. Hernandez,” Jacobovitz said. “These are conditions that could shorten his life.”

Hernandez denies harassing Chung. He acknowledges he once cursed in Chung’s presence, but contends he never cursed directly at Chung. He rarely ever talks to Chung, he said.

“Put me on a lie detector test,” he said. “I would gladly take one. I never have talked to a member of city staff like that. Never.”

Then on Oct. 23, Public Information Officer Susan Williams also filed a claim with the city, saying Hernandez has caused her to become physically ill.

In the complaint, she said Hernandez harmed her by naming her when discussing the elimination of the city’s public information officer position.

Along with irritable bowels, hair loss and nausea, the episode made Williams fear she would have a heart attack, she wrote in the report.

Williams, who did not return several calls seeking comment, did not detail how much she seeks from the city.

In an e-mail, she wrote: “It is with great regret that I had to file a claim. However, I have been negatively affected both personally and professionally and feel that I must protect my health, welfare, reputation and stand up for what is right.”

Touhey said Hernandez should go through the city manager when he disagrees with an employee.

City workers are in a union that demands certain protocols, he said.

“There’s still union rights and I respect that,” he said. “You can mention an employee’s job, but you shouldn’t say the name.”

Hernandez said the complaints are an organized attack against him because he often votes against development projects favored by the other members of the council.

Either way, Hernandez has a right to bring up the performance of city employees, said Peter Scheer of the California First Amendment Coalition.

Even naming an employee in the context of budget cuts is most likely legal and acceptable.

“It would seem to me the council member is expressing his or her right to speak,” Scheer said. “And that includes speaking critically about an employee.”

Staff Writer Jennifer McLain contributed to this story

ben.baeder@sgvn.com

Oakland Tribune Contra Costa Times
11/03/2008

The Oakland Police Department on Monday returned a videotape confiscated last week from an Oakland Tribune staffer by Oakland school district police during an immigration rights protest at the Fruitvale BART station.

The Alameda County District Attorney’s office has not decided yet if any charges will be brought against Tribune videographer Jane Tyska, who was detained during the protest on Friday. But that office authorized the return of the videotape Monday.

Tyska had the video camera running as she was detained by Art Michel, Oakland Unified School District police chief. On tape, he accuses Tyska of hitting his car, orders her into the patrol car’s back seat and at one point accuses her of inciting a riot.

“I didn’t hit your car,” Tyska says on the tape. “I’m working press.”

Michel responds “No, you’re a pain in the a-- and you hit my car. Get in the car or I’m going to stuff you in the car.”

Michel adds “You’re a lying son of a b----, you hit my car, I saw you. I was looking right at you when you hit it.”

The encounter lasts a little over two minutes, before ending when the officer demands the tape.

Tyska said the officer grazed her with his car as she was walking backward, videotaping protesters in the middle of the street. He then stopped his car, began yelling profanities at her and accused her of hitting his car and inciting a riot, Tyska said.

“I immediately identified myself as a photographer for the Oakland Tribune, showed him my press pass and said I was just doing my job, but he continued yelling and screaming profanities and said he was going to arrest me.”

In his police report, Michel maintained Tyska hit his car while filming and detained her for vandalism about 10:15 a.m. Friday.

Michel’s report states that Tyska was detained for blocking the roadway, inciting a riot and breaking a vehicle.

“Her arm struck my vehicle’s right-side view mirror. She yelled something that I could not understand, and the crowd started to yell. I immediately stopped and exited my patrol vehicle to detain Tyska for vandalism and blocking the roadway.”

Tyska was placed in back of a patrol car and released without citation.

The protest was part of a larger rally by students who were headed to San Francisco for an immigration rights event.

The school district maintained that Michel was trailing the student-protesters as they made their way down International Boulevard when the incident happened.

“The officer confiscated the tape as alleged evidence of the photographer’s interference with his ability to conduct his responsibilities, which in this case was protecting student-protesters,” district spokesman Troy Flint said Friday.

The video is available on insidebayarea.com. Viewer discretion is advised because of profanity.

“I have spoken at length with Chief Michel about this incident several times since it happened and he has professed regret that the situation ever occurred,” said Pete Wevurski, managing editor of Bay Area News Group-East Bay, which publishes Tribune.

“Even so, we could not ignore what’s on the tape because we take freedom of the press very seriously. It conveys the right for journalists to perform their jobs without interference by any government agency.

“With that right comes responsibilities, including an obligation to keep anyone from infringing on that freedom or from being emboldened enough to try. I trust that making this tape available to the public will dissuade others from interfering with the job we do on the public’s behalf.”

Copyright, Oakland Tribune

The Supreme will decide a free speech case in which a municipality rejected the offer of an obscure religious sect to place a religious sculpture in a public park that was already home to a Judaeo-Christian religious symbol: the Ten Commandments. The sect views the park as a public forum to which the sect’s religious symbol must be given equal access. The municipality argues that its own free spech rigghts are abridged if it is forced to be asociated formally with the sect’s symbol.

New York Times
November 11, 2008
By ADAM LIPTAK

PLEASANT GROVE CITY, Utah — Across the street from City Hall here sits a small park with about a dozen donated buildings and objects — a wishing well, a millstone from the city’s first flour mill and an imposing red granite monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments.

Thirty miles to the north, in Salt Lake City, adherents of a religion called Summum gather in a wood and metal pyramid hard by Interstate 15 to meditate on their Seven Aphorisms, fortified by an alcoholic sacramental nectar they produce and surrounded by mummified animals.

In 2003, the president of the Summum church wrote to the mayor here with a proposal: the church wanted to erect a monument inscribed with the Seven Aphorisms in the city park, “similar in size and nature” to the one devoted to the Ten Commandments.

The city declined, a lawsuit followed and a federal appeals court ruled that the First Amendment required the city to display the Summum monument. The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments in the case, which could produce the most important free speech decision of the term.

The justices will consider whether a public park open to some donations must accept others as well. In cases involving speeches and leaflets, the courts have generally said that public parks are public forums where the government cannot discriminate among speakers on the basis of what they propose to say. The question of how donated objects should be treated is, however, an open one.

Inside the pyramid, sitting on a comfortable white couch near a mummified Doberman named Butch, Ron Temu, a Summum counselor, said the two monuments would complement each other.

“They’ve put a basically Judeo-Christian religious text in the park, which we think is great, because people should be exposed to it,” Mr. Temu said. “But our principles should be exposed as well.”

Su Menu, the church’s president, agreed. “If you look at them side by side,” Ms. Menu said of the two monuments, “they really are saying similar things.”

The Third Commandment: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”

The Third Aphorism: “Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.”

Michael W. Daniels, the mayor here, is not the vibrating sort.

Sitting with the city attorney in a conference room in City Hall, Mr. Daniels deftly drew several fine lines in explaining why the city could treat the two monuments differently.

Only donations concerning the city’s history are eligible for display in the park as a matter of longstanding policy, he said, and only when donated by groups with a long association with the city. The Fraternal Order of Eagles, a national civic organization, donated the Ten Commandments monument in 1971.

The donations, Mr. Daniels went on, are transformed when the city accepts them. “Monuments on government property become government speech,” he said.

Under the First Amendment, the government can generally say what it likes without giving equal time to opposing views; it has much less latitude to choose among private speakers.

Asked what the government is saying when it displays the Ten Commandments, Mr. Daniels talked about law and history. He did not mention religion.

Pressed a little, he retreated.

“The fact that we own the monument doesn’t mean that what is on the monument is something we are espousing, promoting, establishing, embracing,” Mr. Daniels said. “We’re looking at, Does it fit with the heritage of the people of this area?”

Brian M. Barnard, a lawyer for the Summum church, said the city’s distinctions were cooked up after the fact as a way to reject his client’s monument. The local chapter of the Eagles, Mr. Barnard added, had only been in town two years when it donated the Ten Commandments monument.

“We have a city that will allow one organization to put up its religious ideals and principles,” Mr. Barnard said. “When the next group comes along, they won’t allow it to put up its religious ideals and principles.”

Last year, the federal appeals court in Denver sided with the Summum church and ordered Pleasant Grove City to erect its monument.

Although the case appears to present questions under the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion, the appeals court said the case was properly analyzed under the amendment’s free-speech protections. That distinguishes it from most cases concerning the display of nativity scenes and the like on government property.

The city, supported by more than 20 cities and states, along with the federal government, has told the Supreme Court that the upshot of affirming the appeals court decision would be to clutter public parks across the nation with offensive nonsense.

A town accepting a Sept. 11 memorial would also have to display a donated tribute to Al Qaeda, the briefs said. “Accepting a Statue of Liberty,” the city’s brief said, should not “compel a government to accept a Statue of Tyranny.”

The brief for the Summum church said the relevant dispute was much narrower. “The government,” it said, “may not take sides in a theological debate.”

Governments seeking to avoid accepting donations they do not want have several options, the Summum brief contended. They can choose to display nothing. They can speak in their own voice by creating or commissioning their own monuments. And they can adopt the messages conveyed by donated monuments as their own, but only if they do so expressly and unequivocally.

The Ten Commandments monument here stands in Pioneer Park, which pays tribute to the city’s frontier heritage, one that is mostly Mormon. The two sides differ about how best to honor that heritage.

Mayor Daniels said the monument broadly reflected local history. Mr. Barnard, the Summum lawyer, said the Ten Commandments did not play a central role in the Mormon faith. “If they wanted to quote from the Book of Mormon,” he said, “that would, at least, relate to the pioneers.”

“Mormons came to Utah because of religious persecution,” Mr. Barnard added. “The pioneer heritage in Utah has to be escape from persecution.”

The Summum church was founded in 1975, and it contains elements of Egyptian faiths and Gnostic Christianity. “Summum,” derived from the Latin, refers to the sum of all creation.

Followers of Summum believe that Moses received two sets of tablets on Mount Sinai and that the Ten Commandments were on the second set. The aphorisms were on the first one.

“When Moses came down from the mountain the first time, he brought the principles of creation,” Mr. Temu said. “But he saw the people weren’t ready for them, so he threw them on the ground and destroyed them.”

Summum’s founder, Corky Ra, says he learned the aphorisms during a series of telepathic encounters with divine beings he called Summa Individuals.

Mr. Barnard has represented the Summum church for many years. “They’re odd,” he said of his clients, with an affectionate smile. “They’re strange. They’re different.”

Bernie Aua, the church’s vice president, said the court case should not turn on how his religion was viewed.

“We have this thing called the Constitution,” Mr. Aua said. “The fact is, it’s a public park. And public parks are public.”

Copyright, New York Times

Rebecca MacKinnon reports on her blog that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has met in China with the head of th