Who's mixing religion and politics?

It's the latest round in the ACLU's battle to deprive the LDS Church of what it paid for, and promote harrassment of LDS members and others visiting Temple Square in Salt Lake City. This isn't public property. I used to be a section of street that nobody but delivery trucks used. It was dark and grimy and the city had been wanting to turn it into a pedestrian park for years. Then the Church decided to build a bigger hall to hold those who attend its semiannual general conferences because the Tabernacle couldn't accommodate all who wanted to come. For that, it needed to build increased underground parking, so it made the city an offer to buy this property for $8.5 million and turn the surface into a plaza extending Temple Square, which is the city's No. 1 tourist attraction. It became a walkway for pedestrians, with reflecting pools, flowerbeds and benches.

The trouble started when the church banned panhandling, leafleteering, smoking and street preaching. Agressive "preachers" with bullhorns are a common sight on the sidewalks around Temple Square, telling Mormons that they're going to hell, insulting them and their beliefs and generally being obnoxious as they can. They even began to interrupt wedding parties taking family photos around fountains and reflecting pools with the temple in the background. Mormons believe that marriages solemized in the temple are eternal, not just "until death do you part." It's the highest ordinance that they can receive.

The local Unitarians joined with the ACLU and brought suit, claiming that the city had retained a public easement to the plaza and that the restrictions were violative of the rights of the public, no matter how offensive, rude or unruly. The city's mayor, a former Mormon and ACLU attorney, supported the suit. The church won, but the decision was reversed by the 10th Circuit, which suggested that if the church bought the easement rights, it could reinstate its restrictions. After a boisterous public debate, the city and the church came to a deal by which the church bought out the easement, but the plaintiffs have persisted and the case is once more up on appeal. The plaza sans nuisances, vagrancy and activities that are inconsistent with the temple grounds is a bright spot in a downtown area which is in decline, but, the ACLU being what it is, the rest of society must be sacrificed in the name of free speech and the Establishment Clause.

This situation, along with the efforts of environmentalist activist groups to do away with public access to vast tracts of scenic lands in Southern Utah, opened my eyes about the consequences of radical libertarian thinking. I now believe that democracy means little if it is trumped all over the place by minority groups determined to impose their views on everybody else. The Constitution's Preamble lists "insur[ing] domestic Tranquility," as one of the purposes of its adoption, but that has been overwhelmed by the development of free speech and civil rights as a club for protestors and pornographers.