A MONUMENTAL free speech and establishment case?

Among the cases the Supreme Court agreed to hear on Monday March 31 was the Pleasant Grove City v. Summum case considering whether the religious group known as Summum, headquartered in Salt Lake City, had its First Amendment right of free speech violated when the city of Pleasant Grove Utah denied the group’s request to erect a monument similar to an existing monument of the Ten Commandments in a city park

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Summum, following the precedent that private speech (the monument) is protected in a public forum (the park).

It will be interesting to watch how the Supreme Court will consider many precedents in this case and try to base their ruling on them.

The Court will first likely be faced with the argument that the First Amendment right of free speech doesn’t apply to the city of Pleasant Grove or the state of Utah because the First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law..." but the court will likely pass over this argument quickly citing that the 1st Amendment was incorporated through the due process clause decades ago.