Posted on 12/07/2004 2:27:30 PM PST by nickcarraway
The hoods hiding under the white hoods of the Ku Klux Klan will have to show their faces if they want to protest in New York City, the Supreme Court decided yesterday.
The high court put an end to a five-year legal battle yesterday by refusing to hear an appeal of the city's mask ordinance filed by a KKK offshoot group.
The group had argued its rights were violated in 1999, when the city barred its members from a masked protest in Foley Square. Seventeen members demonstrated anyway - along with 6,000 counterprotesters.
A federal appeals court ruled against the Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in January, calling the city's 159-year-old ordinance constitutional.
"While the First Amendment protects the rights of citizens to express their viewpoints, however unpopular, it does not guarantee ideal conditions for doing so," the appeals court said.
The city ordinance forbids gatherings of three or more masked or hooded people - unless they are attending "a masquerade party or like entertainment."
Since the law was dusted off to stop the KKK rally, it has been used generally against left-wing protesters at events like May Day protests, the Republican National Convention and the 2002 World Economic Forum.
Was this a ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court? I fail to see how a court that has ruled in favor of Internet porn and flag burning could make a ruling like this.
To finish my thought, first the article refers to "the Supreme Court," then it refers to a federal appeals court. Which is it?
Maybe now we can see all those gays and lesbians with there masks removed in gay pride parades.
CAIR is not going to like tis ruling, does this mean burka's are out ?
Why not? They already remove almost everything else ...
I believe they are referring to New York Supreme Court.
Looks like these cowards will have to show their faces in public now. I wonder how many actually will.
Klan protest in New York: Five scared looking guys surrounded by 30,000 screaming counterprotesters, from the Jewish Defense League to Queers for Environmental Protection.
Dont the people in the chinese new year parade wear masks. Does the city now make them take off their masks too?
Since it followed a Fedearal Appeals Court ruling, I'm guessing this is also a federal ruling. Also NYS does not follow the norm in hierarchy. Our Supreme Court is not the state's highest, that goes to the State Apellate Court.
Nope, nor do people have to remove or not wear masks for halloween events or parades and stuff.
The exception has to do with entertainment. I.E. parties.
I'm not to sure which court this was, but I do know that in 1999, the ACLU, Al Sharpton and a bunch of other leftists groups filed friend of the court briefs BACKING the KKK in there fight to get to keep there hoods.
Sharpton and a whole host of lefty groups all have various reasons for wanting the city's ban on masks/hoods struck down. The irony of Sharpton and the KKK using the same attorney was not lost on alot of us.
I think irony is the wrong word.
The article is horrible. It should say U.S. Supreme Court if that is what they mean. In New York, the "Supreme Court" is the lowest trial court. But the U.S. Supreme Court might well have reviewed a decision of a U.S. appellate court (which in turn would have reviewed a decision of a U.S. district (trial) court.
Reuters did a better job (hate to admit). Here is an excerpt from this site: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7005725
Supreme Court Denies Klan Appeal to Anti-Mask Law
Mon Dec 6, 2004 10:52 AM ET
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Monday a free-speech challenge to a New York law banning the wearing of masks at public gatherings by a group claiming ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
Without comment, the justices let stand a ruling by a U.S. appeals court that upheld the law as constitutional and rejected the challenge by the Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1999, the American Knights filed a lawsuit arguing that the refusal of New York City police officials to allow it to conduct a rally wearing hooded masks violated its free-speech rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Seventeen of its members attended the rally on Oct. 23, 1999, but they did not wear masks.
A federal judge in 2002 ruled that the law violated the group's free-speech rights, but a U.S. appeals court early this year upheld the anti-mask law as constitutional.
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