760
Opinion of the Court
gest in their merits brief and in their oral argument that Ohio's genuine reason for disallowing the display was disapproval of the political views of the Ku Klux Klan. Whatever the fact may be, the case was not presented and decided that way. The record facts before us and the opinions below address only the Establishment Clause issue; 1 that is the question upon which we granted certiorari; and that is the sole question before us to decide.
Respondents' religious display in Capitol Square was private expression. Our precedent establishes that private religious speech, far from being a First Amendment orphan, is as fully protected under the Free Speech Clause as secular private expression. Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 508 U. S. 384 (1993); Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226 (1990); Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263 (1981); Heffron v. International Soc. for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U. S. 640 (1981). Indeed, in Anglo-American history, at least, government suppression of speech has so commonly been directed precisely at religious speech that a free-speech clause without religion would be Hamlet without the prince. Accordingly, we have not excluded from free-speech protections religious proselytizing, Heffron, supra, at 647, or even acts of worship, Widmar, supra, at 269, n. 6. Petitioners do not dispute that respondents, in displaying their cross, were engaging in constitutionally protected expression. They do contend that the constitutional pro-1 Respondents claim that the Sixth Circuit's statement that "[z]ealots have First Amendment rights too," even if their views are unpopular, shows that the case is actually about discrimination against political speech. That conclusion is possible only if the statement is ripped from its context, which was this: "The potency of religious speech is not a constitutional infirmity; the most fervently devotional and blatantly sectarian speech is protected when it is private speech in a public forum. Zealots have First Amendment rights too." 30 F. 3d 675, 680 (1994). The court was obviously addressing zealous (and unpopular) religious speech.
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