Opinion ID: 767619
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Continuing Endorsement of Religion

Text: 16 Reinders and FFRF also contend that a violation of the Establishment Clause persists because the layout of the park and the location and orientation of the statue would cause a reasonable observer to perceive that the statue was still a part of the city park and thus continues to constitute government endorsement of religion. In Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612-13 (1971), the Supreme Court established a three-part test to determine whether government action constitutes an endorsement of religion. According to Lemon, government action does not violate the Establishment Clause if (1) the action has a secular purpose; (2) the principal or primary effect of the action neither advances nor inhibits religion; and (3) the action does not foster excessive government entanglement with religion. See id. Before applying the Lemon test, we note that there is no doubt as to the obvious religious message imparted by the statue. On the statue's base in large letters are the words, Christ Guide Us On Our Way. The City does not contend, nor could it reasonably do so, that the statue serves any secular purpose other than to beautify the park. For this reason, we find that the statue serves no secular purpose. See Gonzales, 4 F.3d at 1421 (finding that purpose of beautifying public park does not supersede monument's primary religious purpose). 17 In addition, the statue violates the Establishment Clause if it has the effect of advancing religion. Following the Court's formal acceptance in County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, 492 U.S. 573, 595 (1989), the effect prong of this test has been analyzed under the perception of endorsement test developed in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 690 (1984) (O'Connor, J., concurring). Under this test, [t]he effect prong asks whether, irrespective of government's actual purpose, the practice under review in fact conveys a message of endorsement or disapproval. Id. When we find that a reasonable person could perceive that a government action conveys the message that religion or a particular religious belief is favored or preferred, the Establishment Clause has been violated. See Capitol Square, 515 U.S. at 778-79 (O'Connor, J., concurring); Gonzales, 4 F.3d at 1418. 18 Before engaging in our traditional endorsement test analysis, we must consider the site of the government's alleged endorsement. Because public fora have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions, Hague v. CIO, 307 U.S. 496, 515 (1939), we restrict the government's ability to limit speech, including religious speech, in such areas absent a compelling state interest. See Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 508 U.S. 384, 394 (1993); Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 271 (1981); Doe v. Small, 964 F.2d 611, 619 (7th Cir. 1992). In Capitol Square, concern among the justices about potential conflict between Free Exercise and Establishment Clause rights led a plurality of the Court to propose a per se rule that the government has not violated the Establishment Clause by providing a public forum where religious speech is conducted by purely private parties, so long as the forum is open to all on equal terms. See Capitol Square, 515 U.S. at 770. 19 However, a majority of justices in Capitol Square separately rejected this limited abandonment of the endorsement test because it felt a per se test would prove too inflexible for the many fact patterns potentially implicating an endorsement of religion. See id. at 787 (Souter, J., concurring). Justice O'Connor, in a concurrence joined by Justices Breyer and Souter, recalled that [e]very government practice must be judged in its unique circumstances to determine whether it constitutes an endorsement or disapproval of religion. Id. at 778, quoting Lynch, 465 U.S. at 694. The varying factual backgrounds of government actions potentially constituting an endorsement require a broad rule that could capture even private speech which reasonably may be understood to constitute a public endorsement of religion. Therefore, these justices applied the traditional endorsement test and found that the expression at issue in Capitol Square did not constitute an endorsement of religion. Similarly, Justice Stevens used the endorsement test to reach the conclusion, which he expressed in dissent, that the government action endorsed religion. Justice Ginsburg dissented separately from the judgment, but she did not specify which test she favored. See Capitol Square, 515 U.S. at 817. 20 Praschak Wayside Park is a city park and a traditional public forum. Therefore, unless we determine that the sale of a section of this park to a private organization has changed the nature of the park, we will apply the tests considered in Capitol Square to the facts before us. Despite the sale of park land to a private body, we find that the Fund property constitutes a part of this public forum. We acknowledge that there is no clear precedent on the matter whether private property can be considered a public forum, see Denver Area Educ. Telecomm. Consortium, Inc. v. FCC, 518 U.S. 727, 742 (1996) (refusing to answer broad questions such as the extent to which private property can be designated a public forum), but we base our finding on three factors: the historical association of the Fund property with a public forum; the dedication of the property to public use; and the physical location of the 0.15 acre Fund site in relation to the public park and the location and orientation of the statue of Christ within it. 21 Whether a property has historically been used for public expression plays an important role in determining if the property will be considered a public forum. See International Soc'y for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee, 505 U.S. 672, 681 (1992) (refusing to consider bus terminals and train terminals as traditional public fora because of their history of private ownership); Chicago Acorn v. Metropolitan Pier & Expo. Auth., 150 F.3d 695, 699-700 (7th Cir. 1998) (concluding that meeting and convention areas are not public fora based on the history of the facility's use). Until the time of the sale, the property now owned by the Fund had been used for public park purposes and was a part of an acknowledged public forum. In addition, the restrictive covenant in the warranty deed dedicated the Fund property to public use, and land dedicated to public use remains a part of a traditional public forum. See Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Educ. Fund, 473 U.S. 788, 801 (1985) (including private property dedicated to public uses within public forum analysis). 22 Finally, the Fund's 0.15 acre site is not physically differentiated from the surrounding public park, and no visual boundaries currently exist that would inform the reasonable but unknowledgeable observer that the Fund property should be distinguished from the public park. In addition to the fact that no barrier exists betweenthe City's park and the Fund property, the statue's positioning and orientation combine with the other physical features to convey the impression that the statue is on city park property. 1 23 The Fund owns the property on which the statue rests, so the expression made by the statue is now private religious speech. Thus we confront a case, albeit convoluted, of private religious speech made at a traditional public forum, where the analysis of Capitol Square applies. Under Capitol Square, when private religious expression is made at a traditional public forum, the government's condonation of such expression may be government action endorsing religion, even if the government makes no overt act in furtherance of religion. See Capitol Square, 515 U.S. at 787 (Souter, J., concurring) (Allegheny's endorsement test cannot be dismissed . . . as applying only to situations in which there is an allegation that the Establishment Clause has been violated through 'expression by the government itself' or 'government action . . . discriminat[ing] in favor of private religious expression.'). According to the per se rule advocated by the plurality in Capitol Square, to find a violation of the Establishment Clause we must determine either that the speaker is not a purely private person or that the forum is not open equally. See Capitol Square, 515 U.S. at 770. Under the endorsement test, we look to the unique facts and circumstances before us to determine whether a reasonable person would perceive the existence of the statue to promote or disfavor religion or a particular religious belief. See id. at 778. 24 Taking into account the unique facts and circumstances as they would affect the reasonable person, we find that the presence of the statue would create the perception of government endorsement in a reasonable observer. In Capitol Square, Justice O'Connor explained that in a traditional public forum a reasonable observer would be aware that a multiplicity of groups, both secular and religious, engage in expressive conduct. Id. at 782. In this regard, the history of Praschak Wayside Park differs dramatically from other public fora. Since its creation in 1964, the park has expressed only one message, which is the religious message conveyed by the statue. The park was created to display the statue, and the City presents no evidence that other groups have ever used the park to present alternative messages. For this reason, a reasonable observer familiar with the history of the park would have no reason to be aware of non- sectarian reasons for the government's endorsement of religion. The current physical state of the park also leads a reasonable person to conclude that the statue is a part of the public park and that the government, rather than a private entity, endorses religion. As we have noted, Fund land is visually indistinguishable from City land, especially when viewed from Highway 13. 25 Finally, we are mindful that secular circumstances may serve to neutralize the religious message of an unattended monument. See Gonzales, 4 F.3d at 1422. The City argues that the duration of the statue's stay in the park has made it a non-sectarian landmark. However, we rejected this argument in similar circumstances in Gonzales, noting that such an argument smacks of bootstrapping, id., because it would allow a violation of the Establishment Clause to become permissible merely by remaining in violation of the clause without complaint. In addition, the disclaimer is insufficient as currently constructed to dispel this perception. For these reasons, we believe that a reasonable observer, without regard to a reasonable observer's degree of understanding, 2 wouldperceive the statue to constitute a City endorsement of religion. 26 We find that, even under the more permissive per se rule endorsed by the plurality in Capitol Square, the present layout of the park invites a perception of a government endorsement of religion. The sale transferred the statue from City ownership to private ownership, and the Fund, a purely private entity, is responsible for any expression inferred from the statue. Had the sale of the property been conducted in such a manner as to remove the impression that the statue remained part of the public forum, there would be no question that the city ended its Establishment Clause troubles. Nonetheless, because the park is a traditional public forum, the park must remain open to all on equal terms, Capitol Square, 515 U.S. at 770, under the Capitol Square per se rule to avoid an Establishment Clause violation. In his plurality opinion, Justice Scalia noted that giving sectarian religious speech preferential access to a forum close to the seat of government (or anywhere else for that matter) would violate both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, because by so doing, the government exercises favoritism of one sect or religion over another based on the content of the expression. See id. at 766. In this case, the statue, which serves no secular purpose and portrays a figure of particular importance to one religious group, undisputedly expresses a sectarian religious message (Christ Guide Us On Our Way). 27 Although the sale of the land to the Fund ended any direct government action that would constitute endorsement, the sale has given this sectarian message preferential access to Praschak Wayside Park, a public forum. The statue is an unattended object fifteen feet in height and made of marble. For this reason alone, citizens who wish to endorse other religions or sects on equal terms would find it exceedingly difficult to erect an object of equal expressive power or to maintain it on government property. In addition, the sale of a parcel of land where the statue permanently resides, previously within the bounds of the park, provides the Fund with a preferential location from which they may express their message. In contrast with Doe v. Small, 964 F.2d 611 (7th Cir. 1992), where all private parties were all allowed to make protected expression on the same terms, the Fund cannot be compelled to limit its expression in the way that another group wishing to express itself in the park could. For these reasons, we find that by failing to distinguish the Fund's land from the remainder of the park, the City has granted the Fund preferential access to a public forum, which violates the Establishment Clause. Thus, under either the traditional reasonable perception test or the per se test advocated in Capitol Square, we find that the proximity of the statue to City property and the lack of visual definition between City and Fund property creates a perception of improper endorsement of religion by the City and constitutes a violation of the Establishment Clause.