TV preacher Pat Robertson's top lawyer, Jay Sekulow, is all atwitter because a minority religious group wants equal treatment from a local government in Utah. The group, called Summum, wants to erect a monument bearing its "Seven Aphorisms" near a Ten Commandments display in a local park.  

You'd think Sekulow would be all for it, since he usually casts himself as a strong supporter of free speech. In 2007, his American Center for Law and Justice filed a friend-of-the-court brief defending a public school student's right to unfurl a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" poster at a school event. He didn't want school districts "empower[ed] to ban future student speech they considered offensive – including [surprise, surprise] advocating Christian beliefs."

But not this time. No, this time Sekulow is arguing the government doesn't have to be neutral when it decides which viewpoints can be expressed in the public square. It's perfectly okay, says Sekulow, for the government to display the Ten Commandments but not the Seven Aphorisms.

Doesn't the government have to be neutral towards religion and between religion and nonreligion? Yes, many Supreme Court decisions say the Constitution requires neutrality.  But Sekulow doesn't care about that rule when it's his religion that the government is endorsing.    

Would Sekulow feel the same way if the tables were turned? My guess is no. He claims in Pleasant Grove v. Summum that he's concerned about "littering" public parks with monuments from "all comers," but I believe he's worried people will think Christianity and Summum (or Islam, or atheism, or Hinduism or Wicca) are equally valid and worthy of government respect.  

I don't think the government should have an opinion one way or the other. When they recognize some religious groups but not others, they're inevitably going to invite religious tension and strife. That is, after all, what the separation of church and state is meant to discourage.

Robertson and Sekulow don't care much about that, either. Robertson founded the American Center for Law and Justice to push the Religious Right agenda. This case is one more skirmish in that crusade and a victory for Sekulow would be a big, big win for the Religious Right.