Clause issue, and that is the sole question before us to decide." The Advisory Board could do nothing to prevent the Klan from displaying their cross on state-owned land. The conflict The case surrounded the issue of the interpretation of both the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause in the United States Constitution. The Capitol Square in Columbus, Ohio was a state-owned piece of land and any and all unattended displays had to be approved by the Advisory Board. However, over the years the area had become a public forum where people were permitted to hold public gatherings and leave unattended displays that were both secular and religious in nature. The job of the Advisory Board was to issue permits and regulate the content of the displays that took place in the Square. They were to make their decisions within the bounds of the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause. The Establishment Clause states that Congress cannot make a law "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," so the Board had to follow the same protocol in their decisions as well. The Board denied the Ku Klux Klan's permit request "on the grounds that the permit would violate the Establishment Clause," on the same day that they approved the display of a menorah on the square. Pinette and the other Klansmen appealed this decision. Opinion of the court Summary of majority opinion Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the majority opinion of the court on June 22, 1995. He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The court held that: Private religious speech is protected under the free speech clause of the First Amendment Although the state has the right to make content-based restrictions on speech, the board's denial of the Klan's application to display the cross on the statehouse square was not justified on the grounds of the establishment clause. Traditionally, the square had been recognized as a public forum by the general population and because the display of religion was purely private it could not violate the Establishment Clause. The Advisory Board was still responsible for the content displayed on the square, but they could not intentionally block a religious display from being set up. Concurrence Justice Clarence Thomas concurred with the Court's ruling on the Establishment Clause, but felt that the Klan's primary goal with the cross did not exclusively serve