WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday again did not decide if it would accept a case about whether The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must allow protests on its once-public-but-now-private Main Street Plaza.
The court also said it will not issue any more orders until next Monday about what cases it will accept.
That means the Salt Lake City Council will not know whether the court will hear that case before it holds a public hearing on Tuesday, and possibly votes Thursday, on a proposal to swap the city's public easement on Main Street Plaza sidewalks for church-owned land in Glendale for a community center.
On May 15, the Supreme Court held a private conference to consider whether to accept the Main Street Plaza case and scores of others. However, the court has not included it among three sets of orders that it has issued since then.
It is expected to announce its decision sometime before June 30, when the court closes for its summer break.
Meanwhile, the City Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing Tuesday about Mayor Rocky Anderson's proposal to swap a public easement — which the city retained when it sold the section of Main Street between South and North Temple streets to the church — for the church-owned land in Glendale. It may vote on it on Thursday.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union that sidewalks across the plaza, because of a city-owned pedestrian easement there, are a "public forum" and the church must allow protests there.
Numerous groups have filed friend-of-the-court briefs asking the Supreme Court to accept the case and reverse the lower-court decision.
For example, the National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties filed one saying, "Until the 10th Circuit issued its decision in this case, local government had every reason to believe that private landowners who agreed to convey such limited-purpose easements could retain the authority to restrict expressive activity on their property. This is no longer true."
Attorneys general for Utah, Alabama, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and West Virginia filed a brief saying the 10th Circuit's decision interferes with the ability of governments to sell land, with buyers now worrying the land will still be considered a "public forum" for protests they cannot control.
One unusual ally for the LDS church is the Venetian Casino Resort of Las Vegas. It has been sued for trying to stop labor union protests on private sidewalks outside of its casino, and filed a friend-of-the-court brief saying accepting the Main Street Plaza case might help its situation.
A group of churches, ranging from the United Methodist Church to the Lutheran Missouri Synod and the Seventh-day Adventist Church, also filed one saying, "We often find ourselves as lightning rods for protest, even as we seek to dedicate our properties, like we dedicate ourselves, to communicating our sacred message to a troubled world." So it said churches nationwide have a deep interest in whether they may control how their property is used.
E-MAIL: lee@desnews.com