802
Stevens, J., dissenting
the surrounding territory—has sponsored and facilitated its message.
That the State may have granted a variety of groups permission to engage in uncensored expressive activities in front of the capitol building does not, in my opinion, qualify or contradict the normal inference of endorsement that the reasonable observer would draw from the unattended, free-standing sign or symbol. Indeed, parades and demonstrations at or near the seat of government are often exercises of the right of the people to petition their government for a redress of grievances—exercises in which the government is the recipient of the message rather than the messenger. Even when a demonstration or parade is not directed against government policy, but merely has made use of a particularly visible forum in order to reach as wide an audience as possible, there usually can be no mistake about the identity of the messengers as persons other than the State. But when a statue or some other freestanding, silent, unattended, immoveable structure—regardless of its particular message— appears on the lawn of the capitol building, the reasonable observer must identify the State either as the messenger, or, at the very least, as one who has endorsed the message. Contrast, in this light, the image of the cross standing alone and unattended, see infra, at 816, and the image the observer would take away were a hooded Klansman holding, or standing next to, the very same cross.
This Court has never held that a private party has a right to place an unattended object in a public forum.7 Today the
7 Despite the absence of any holding on this point, Justice O'Connor assumes that a reasonable observer would not impute the content of an unattended display to the government because that observer would know that the State is required to allow all such displays on Capitol Square. Ante, at 780-781. Justice O'Connor thus presumes a reasonable observer so prescient as to understand legal doctrines that this Court has not yet adopted.
Page: Index Previous 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007