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To: Publius Valerius
Let's be honest: if the sign had said "Go USA! Win the Gold!" do you think the principal would have ran over and torn down the sign?

No I do not.

I would categorize it not only as a time based restriction, but a manner based restriction. The manner in which he presented his message was offensive. Protected speech can be offensive it the part that gives offense is critical part of the message or a critical part of delivering the message effectively. I don't really understand what message he was trying to present, so it's difficult for me to gage if he needed to be offensive, but I'm skeptical.

I also don't think that bans based on the content are entirely unconstitutional, but they face a very high level of scrutiny. ie. You cannot make credible threats to the life of the President.

Since a lot of this is theoretical anyway, let me suggest a slightly different scenario.

Let me say the message is that he disapproves of laws and regulations restricting the use of Marijuana.

What if he presented a sign saying "Marijuana is not a performance enhancing drug" as a criticism of the Olympics testing (or at least having tested in the past) for Marijuana use among their drug tests.

You can make an argument that it was not the right time and place for his bong hits for Jesus sign, but that argument is weakened if he relates the message to the event. It would be a much harder to ban that sign unless the school had a policy of banning the students from holding up any signs at such events.

110 posted on 03/21/2007 8:28:40 AM PDT by untrained skeptic
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To: untrained skeptic
The manner in which he presented his message was offensive

Word:Get over it, (and yourself as well).

111 posted on 03/21/2007 12:11:19 PM PDT by at bay ("We actually did an evil....." Eric Schmidt, CEO Google)
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