SCOTUS Hands Major Victory to Christians, Strikes Major Blow to Angry Atheists
The city of Boston violated the free speech rights of a Christian group by refusing to include the group’s flag in a third-party flag-raising program, according to a unanimous Supreme Court ruling released Monday. The…
The city of 🎓Boston violated the 🗣️Free Speech rights of a Christian group by refusing to include the group’s flag in a third-party flag-raising program, according to a unanimous ⚖️Supreme Court ruling released Monday.
The flag-raising program was meant to promote diversity and tolerance but, according to Reuters, the city refused to fly bearing the image of a cross submitted by a local Christian group called Camp 📜Constitution.
Prior to Camp 📜Constitution’s submission, all 284 flags submitted to the program were accepted. This included the flags of various foreign countries as well as at least one 🏳️🌈LGBT Pride flag, according to Reuters.
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SCOTUS Hands Major Victory to Christians, Strikes Major Blow to Angry Atheists — IJR
In October, following some litigation over the matter,
🎓Boston
compared the Christian flag to the types of symbols used by terrorist groups and Nazi organizations, Reuters reported.
The city claimed that it could not “publicize messages antithetical to its own” and that opening up the flagpole to “all comers” would eventually force the city to raise flags antithetical to its values.
A lower ⚖️Court had previously affirmed this argument.
However, the ⚖️Supreme Court’s 9-0 ruling Monday overturned that ⚖️Court’s decision.
According to Gabriel Malor, an attorney and author at The Federalist, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch wrote concurring opinions alongside the ⚖️Court’s ruling, which was written by liberal ⚖️Justice Stephen Breyer.
“🎓Boston granted requests to fly a variety of secular flags, but denied a request to fly a religious flag. As this ⚖️Court has repeatedly made clear, however, a government does not violate the Establishment Clause merely because it treats religious persons, organizations, and 🗣️Speech equally with secular persons, organizations, and 🗣️Speech in public programs, benefits, facilities, and the like,” Kavanaugh wrote.
“🎓Boston granted requests to fly a variety of secular flags, but denied a request to fly a religious flag. As this ⚖️Court has repeatedly made clear, however, a government does not violate the Establishment Clause merely because it treats religious persons, organizations, and 🗣️Speech equally with secular persons, organizations, and 🗣️Speech in public programs, benefits, facilities, and the like.
“Under the 📜Constitution, a government may not treat religious persons, religious organizations, or religious 🗣️Speech as second-class.”
Gorsuch seemed to agree with Kavanaugh’s assessment.
“If your policy goal is to lump in religious 🗣️Speech with fighting words and obscenity, if it is to celebrate only a ‘particular’ type of diversity consistent with popular ideology, the 🗽First Amendment is not exactly your friend,” Gorsuch wrote.
