Virginia Supreme Court: Lee statue in Richmond to come down

[David Lockmiller]

Virginia Supreme Court clears way for Lee statue in Richmond to come down

The justices found that requirements built into the 1889 deed giving the site to the state, as well as language adopted by the General Assembly in 1890 authorizing the accepting of the property, no longer bind the state to preserve and protect the monument.

The justices wrote that “those restrictive covenants are unenforceable as contrary to public policy and for being unreasonable because their effect is to compel government speech, by forcing the Commonwealth to express, in perpetuity, a message with which it now disagrees.”

[Gene C]

Interesting.
I didn't see it in the article. What was the message the statue makes that the Commonwealth (and who is the Commonwealth in this instance) compelled to express?
Is there any writing on the monument? What is the message they disagree with? Is that message subject to individual interpretation?

Nor does the article state what has changed since 1890 where the state is no longer bound to preserve and protect the monument. Public opinion?
What is the "restrictive covenant" they are talking about? What does it say?

The article is certainly lacking in detail. Anyone know if the Court ruling has been made public?

It's not that I disagree with them, it's that I don't know the basis or foundation of the Court's argument.

[AussieMick]

(09-02-2021 12:16 PM)Gene C Wrote:  Interesting.
....

Yes,indeed.
I Googled the meaning of "Commonwealth " and it can obviously be used with a capital C or small c.
My opinion is that used with a small "c" I can understand, but not agree with, the legal argument. ... but used with a capital "C" suggests the legal people are allowing their political ideas to influence decisions or at least made a grammatical error.
Just my opinion.

[David Lockmiller]

(09-02-2021 04:51 PM)AussieMick Wrote:  

(09-02-2021 12:16 PM)Gene C Wrote:  Interesting.
....

Yes,indeed.
I Googled the meaning of "Commonwealth " and it can obviously be used with a capital C or small c.
My opinion is that used with a small "c" I can understand, but not agree with, the legal argument. ... but used with a capital "C" suggests the legal people are allowing their political ideas to influence decisions or at least made a grammatical error.
Just my opinion.

A Sharp Divide at the Supreme Court Over a One-Letter Word

NYTimes April 29, 2021

In an immigration ruling that scrambled the usual alliances, the justices differed over the significance of the article “a.”

The law [in] “a notice to appear” for a deportation hearing list[s] various kinds of information, including the nature of the proceeding and when and where it will take place.

Justice Gorsuch [wrote] that the court’s job was to unearth the meaning of the statute before it.

“If, in the process of discerning that meaning, we happen to consult grammar and dictionary definitions — along with statutory structure and history — we do so because the rules that govern language often inform how ordinary people understand the rules that govern them.”

He added that it was only fair to hold the government to the standards it imposes on ordinary people. “If the government finds filling out forms a chore, it has good company,” he wrote. “The world is awash in forms, and rarely do agencies afford individuals the same latitude in completing them that the government seeks for itself today.”

“At one level,” Justice Gorsuch wrote, “today’s dispute may seem semantic, focused on a single word, a small one at that. But words are how the law constrains power.”

Justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan formed the majority. Justice Gorsuch’s wrote the majority opinion in the case, Niz-Chavez v. Garland, No. 19-863.

[Veronica]

So, an another statue will bite the dust.
Perhaps nice to mention this article, which I have found in the Pall Mall Gazette Friday 30, May 1890, which goes as follow; 'The Richmond statue to General Lee'.
The statue erected at Richmond, Virginia, to the memory of General Robert E. Lee, was unveiled yesterday, with appropriate ceremonies.
The City was decorated with Federal and rebels flags, and a brilliant ball was given in the evening at which the Misses Lee were the centre of attraction.

Imagine, they were dancing under Federal and rebel flags, for them after that event, whenever they passed Lee's statue, in all possibility they had remembered that 'brilliant ball', who knows, whose ancestors had there their first encounter on that evening in May... Might be the very one's that are now squabbling about the issue of the capital C in commonwealth.
If we go further with this, no one would dear to say or write a single word as there is always a way to find something bad in it.
If I read or hear about a church or statue that one wants to tear down, I always wonder, 'Is someone in the need of a profitably parking lot?'
Well, all the best
Veronica