Supreme Court Humor of the Day

From Justice Alito's majority opinion in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, No. 07-665, Section IV.C (Feb. 25, 2009), rejecting a demand that a private religious organization had a First Amendment right to build a permanent monument in a city park:

Respondent contends that this issue "can be dealt with through content-neutral time, place and manner restrictions, including the option of a ban on all unattended displays." Brief for Respondent 14. On this view, when France presented the Statue of Liberty to the United States in 1884, this country had the option of either (a) declining France’s offer or (b) accepting the gift, but providing a comparable location in the harbor of New York for other statues of a similar size and nature (e.g., a Statue of Autocracy, if one had been offered by, say, the German Empire or Imperial Russia).