home > resources > archive ACLU of Utah Activist Email Newsletter: June 2003 In this Issue: U.S. Supreme Court will not hear Mormon Church appeal Utah Delegation in DC for first ACLU Membership Conference Utah Lawyers plan celebration or protest for Supreme Court ruling on Sodomy Laws The ACLU of Utah applauds recent Utah Supreme Court Decision ACLU of Utah night at Saturday’s Voyeur ACLU’s Safe and Free Campaign U.S. Supreme Court will not hear Mormon Church appeal Tenth Circuit ruling remains: Main Street Plaza easement is a public forum and church’s restrictions on speech unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding full First Amendment rights, including free speech, on the controversial Main Street Plaza, Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1999 Salt Lake City sold a block of Main Street to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints but retained an easement for public access and passage. The Church placed restrictions on speech and behavior. The federal District Court in Utah had ruled in favor of the restrictions, calling the plaza an ecclesiastical park. On appeal, the Tenth Circuit ruled that the pedestrian easement reserved to the City is a traditional public forum to which the free speech clause of the First Amendment applies, and therefore the LDS Churchs restrictions on expressive conduct violated the First Amendment of the U.S Constitution. Today the Supreme Court denied a writ of certiorari filed by the Church. The Church claimed that the Tenth Circuit decision was in conflict with a decision of the Second Circuit regarding the Lincoln Center Plaza in New York City. Utahs Attorney General and other parties filed Friend of the Courtbriefs arguing that the Tenth Circuits decision unduly impeded the ability of government entities to sell public land. American Civil Liberties Union attorneys Mark Lopez and Stephen Clark filed a responding brief on behalf of the First Unitarian Church reiterating First Amendment concerns and arguing that there was no conflict with the Second Circuits decision, merely a different outcome due to the application of settled law to the unique property in each case, and that the Tenth Circuit decision does not imperil the rights of property owners or interfere with municipal government but merely requires that they comply with the Constitution. In May of 1999, Stephen Clark, then legal director for the ACLU of Utah, wrote a letter to Salt Lake City suggesting that the restrictions on expressive behavior contained within the Special Warranty Deed were unconstitutional and should be addressed by the City. The City declined to address the problem. The ACLU brought an action against the City to remedy constitutional violations and the LDS Church intervened in the lawsuit. While the case was pending and the property was patrolled by the Church, ministers from other religions were arrested while peacefully passing out pamphlets. The denial of cert by the U.S Supreme court today puts to rest legal and constitutional questions raised by the ACLU four years ago and ensures freedom of speech for all, regardless of their viewpoint, on this public portion of this central block of downtown Salt Lake City, a traditional public forum. Although the city currently enjoys the benefits of public passage and access and attendant free expression, the City Council was unwilling to shoulder the attendant burden of regulation and recently voted to vacate the easement. This raises many new and complex legal and public issues dealing with government accommodation of private discrimination and separation of church and state. Read our June 3rd to the City Council re: "Mayor’s Proposal to Abandon the Public’s Rights on the Main Street Plaza " at http://www.acluutah.org/ltr060303.htm. Utah Delegation in DC for first ACLU Membership Conference A strong delegation of Utah residents joined nearly 1,500 card-carrying members of the American Civil Liberties Union converging on the nation’s capital last week for the organization’s first-ever membership conference, an event the ACLU called a national rallying cry against the government’s determination to cut back on civil liberties in the name of national security. "We’ve come to Washington to mobilize ACLU members to insure that Congress and elected officials at all levels hear that the American public does not want the government to trade off our freedoms for security," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "Once energized in Washington, we anticipate that this small army of ACLU members will return to their hometowns prepared to take their activism to the next level and work hard to mobilize their family, friends and neighbors to protect the Constitution." From the reservations of South Dakota to the green mountains of Vermont, ACLU members of all backgrounds and ages traveled by the busload to attend the first national gathering of an organization whose ranks have swelled to 400,000 -- an unprecedented 33 percent jump -- since the attacks of September 11. "There is a reason our membership has grown so dramatically, and it is the same reason lawmakers from across the political spectrum have come together: they oppose recent security measures that go beyond combating terrorism, infringe on civil liberties and are of questionable effectiveness in meeting the threats facing a post-9/11 America," said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. "Our members know that the ACLU will work tirelessly so that our safety can be guaranteed simultaneously with our right to say what we want, befriend whoever we want, worship however we want and be who we are without fear that our lawful actions will land us on the government’s radar screen," Murphy added. The Utah delegation participated in an ACLU lobbying day on Capitol Hill and met with Representative Chris Cannon and a Legislative Counsel for Senator Bennett to discuss civil liberties concerns including Patriot Act II, Racial Profiling, the Victims Rights Amendment, and the Faith Based Institutive. For complete coverage of this historical conference please visit http://www.aclu.org/memberconf03/. Utah Lawyers for Human Rights plan celebration or protest for Supreme Court ruling on Sodomy Laws WHAT: A rally to celebrate or protest the Supreme Court Decision re: the Texas Sodomy Law WHEN : 6:00 pm on the day of the Decision: Thursday, June 26 OR Monday, June 30 Check out www.cabn.org for the exact day WHERE: In front of the State Capitol Building. WHO: Sponsored by Utah Lawyers for Human Rights and other organizations. For questions or to get involved, contact: Kenni Littlefield at 801-209-8925 or Marlin Criddle at 801-474-2299. What to Do: Plan to attend the rally. Send this e-mail on to others. Invite 5 of your friends to join you at the rally and ask them to invite 5 of their friends. WHY: If the decision is favorable (the Texas law is overturned), we will have the opportunity to celebrate the fact that unmarried adults who engage in private consensual sex will no longer be branded as criminals under Utah law. We will celebrate a great step forward in the quest for equal rights under the law. If the decision is unfavorable (the Texas law is upheld, or the Utah law is upheld), we intend to inform the Utah legislature and the people of this state that we will not rest until Utah’s sodomy statute is repealed or found unconstitutional. In either case, we need to make sure that our voice is heard and our presence felt, and we need to continue the struggle for justice and equality. Background: The justices will determine the constitutionality of a Texas law banning sexual relations between homosexuals. Two gay men arrested under the statute argue that it violates their constitutional right to privacy and the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, because heterosexual couples are permitted to engage in the acts. Sheriff’s officers caught John Lawrence and Tyron Garner having consensual sex in September 1998 when the agents entered Lawrence’s house while investigating a false report of a weapons disturbance. Lawrence and Garner pleaded no contest to violating the Texas law, were each ordered to pay a misdemeanor $200 fine and $141.25 in court costs, and appealed their case, Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, all the way to the Supreme Court. This will undoubtedly be the most important US court decision affecting gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/intersex rights since Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986, when the Georgia Sodomy statute was upheld. The decision could have the effect of declaring all sodomy laws in the United States, including Utah’s, unconstitutional. For further background information see http://www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/iowa/documents/record?record=1190. The Texas sodomy statute is being challenged on two grounds: equal protection (the Texas statute criminalizes only same-sex sexual conduct) and privacy (the government has no business regulating private consensual, non-public sexual conduct). Utah’s sodomy statute, http://www.le.state.ut.us/~code/TITLE76/htm/76_05051.htm, and http://www.le.state.ut.us/~code/TITLE76/htm/76_05059.htm, applies to both same-sex and opposite-sex unmarried persons. if the Supreme Court declares the Texas statue unconstitutional on equal protection grounds, Utah’s law would still be enforceable. On the other hand, if the Supreme Court declares the Texas law unconstitutional on privacy grounds, Utah’s law would go the way of the Edsel. The ACLU of Utah applauds recent Utah Supreme Court Decision The ACLU of Utah applauds the recent Utah Supreme Court decision declaring that an administrative vehicle checkpoint is unconstitutional if it grants too much discretion to police officers conducting searches of detained vehicles. In Utah v. Abell, decided May 9, 2003, the Utah Supreme Court stated that multiple purpose checkpoints that permit numerous independent searches and safety checks of vehicles are constitutionally infirm. Each year, the ACLU of Utah receives several complaints concerning administrative vehicle checkpoints set up over holiday weekends. Please contact the ACLU if you feel you have b been subjected to an illegal traffic checkpoint. To read our May 12, 2003 letter to Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron Kennard regarding vehicle checkpoints and the recently decided Utah v. Abell case at http://www.acluutah.org/Ltr_to_Sherrif_Kennard.htm. ACLU of Utah night at Saturday’s Voyeur ACLU of Utah PROVIDING 25 YEARS of FODDER for SATURDAYS VOYEUR! LAUGH ALONG WITH ACLU MEMBERS AND FRIENDS Over the past 25 years, much of the parody in Saturdays Voyeur has been created in some part from ACLU issues and lawsuits. So on the 25th Anniversary of Saturdays Voyeur, we purchased all of the tickets for the July 17th show, to celebrate the work of the Salt Lake Acting Company, and to benefit the work of the ACLU. This year, its a Voyeur Field Day on the Main Street Plaza! Celebrating 25 years of tuneful insanity and satirical fun. Missionaries, ZCMI window-dressers, the newly purified Deseret Book, Rocky and the Vagina Dialogues, an ACLU band --- all manner of things wild and wonderful. Its new, its nostalgic, its song and dance, and its funny as hell (heck)! Tickets: $75 Thursday, July 17th at 7:30 P.M. Please RSVP before July 4th The Salt Lake Acting Company 168 West 500 North Refreshments served at both intermissions Seating is limited. For more information or to purchase tickets call the ACLU office at 521-9862 ext. 101, email aclu@acluutah.org ACLU’s Safe and Free Campaign You can help the ACLU safeguard the American values of freedom and personal liberty embodied in the Constitution. Check out our new Tool Kit. Use the resources on this page to take action now, learn more about the attack on civil liberties, and join the Campaign’s efforts to fight this unprecedented assault on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Spread the word that it is possible to be both safe and free. See http://www.aclu.org/safeandfree/ for more information. Return to top of page

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