Congratulations to ‘Grok friend Hal Shurtleff and Camp Constitution as the US Supreme Court once again voted in favor of free speech with a 9-0 shellacking of the City of Boston.
You can get caught up here for those who haven’t followed the story on our pages, but the big news is today’s decision. All nine justices agreed that the City of Boston violated Camp Constitution’s free speech rights when it refused to fly its flag on a community flag pole (are you listening, Nashua).
Shurtleff wanted to use Boston’s community flag pole to raise the now-infamous Christian Flag (pictured above) but was denied. The liberal city made all the usual excuses. Still, after flying hundreds of flags without any indication that they represented government speech, denying Hal his opportunity was a clear violation of his rights.
In other words, my words, by denying his flag, the city was speaking, and they were not shy about it. According to Reuters,
As a result of the litigation, Boston last October halted the program to ensure that the city cannot be compelled to “publicize messages antithetical to its own.” Boston has said that requiring it to open the flagpole to “all comers” could force it to raise flags promoting division or intolerance, such as a swastika or a terrorist group.
Christianity isn’t just a religion to the City of Boston. It is divisive, intolerant, and evil. That’s the message they sent. That’s their government speech. And regardless of this outcome, the people of Boston and Massachusetts need to pay attention. Christian flag equals Nazis and terrorists to the City.
Seriously?
Just under 58% of the state demographically is religious. Of that, about 56% identify as Christian. Are 56% of Bay State residents nazi terrorists? Most of them are Catholic Democrats so there’s room for debate but even if they were (nazi terrorists), and they are not, their speech would be protected by the First Amendment.
Yes, the Supreme Court was conscious of Boston’s (as a government entity) rights and concerns and noted that “The line between a forum for private expression and the government’s own speech is important, but not always clear.” That, “The, …[if] Boston’s flag-raising program constitutes government speech [It] may refuse flags based on viewpoint. “
But Boston exercised viewpoint discrimination when it refused Hal and his flag.
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that Boston’s flagraising program does not express government speech. As a result, the city’s refusal to let Shurtleff and Camp Constitution fly their flag based on its religious viewpoint violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. We reverse the First Circuit’s contrary judgment and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Congratulations, Hal, and free speech. We’ve also got a handful of concurring opinions to fisk if we can find the time, loaded with some Free Speech gems, I hope.
At the very least, we’ll be talking about this on the next episode of GrokTALK! I’ve reached out to Hal to see when we can have him on as a guest.
SCOTUS Shurtleff v Boston
