Posted on 06/18/2015 12:55:54 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that an Arizona town violated a local church's free speech rights by preventing it from posting signs notifying the public of its worship services.
The court decided 9-0 in favor of Good News Community Church....
....."Speech discrimination is wrong regardless of whether the government intended to violate the First Amendment or not, and it doesn't matter if the government thinks its discrimination was well-intended," said attorney David Cortman of the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the church.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.reuters.com ...
They are the lawyers out defending Christian bakers, florists, and other believers against the wicked fascists who want to destroy speech.
This was a no-brainer of a case (hence the 9-0 decision).
“Today’s decision by the Supreme Court wreaks havoc on the ability of local governments to implement sign code regulations that are responsive to the needs of their communities,”
If your community’s needs violate the Constitution, then they don’t need to be responded to.
It’s worth noting that a lot of these cases involving religious freedom that might seem controversial — like Indian tribes using peyote for their ceremonies, or Amish communities looking for relief from compulsory education laws — end up being decided by 9-0 margins. This is one reason why these challenges to ObamaCare by religious groups have a strong likelihood of success.
So is the case against the bakery that refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. But that is more or less a civil case....until the Gubmint gets involved.
I hope they tell Emperor Sheldon Whitehouse that he CANNOT steal our free speech rights!
I can’t believe the coven of the three witches agreed with this.
They wanted to make sure that the local Wiccan gang could post meeting time signs as well.
Beware!
Two wrongs don’t make a right. The Founding States never intended for our constitutional freedoms to be absolute. But as a consequence of widespread ignorance of 10th Amendment-protected state sovereignty, activist justices have been getting away with weakening state sovereignty since before the days of Constitution ignoring FDR.
Consider unconstitutional Obamacare for example. All that we’re hearing about in legal efforts to fight it is legal technicalities as opposed to unique, 10th Amendment-protect state power to regulate, tax and spend for intrastate healthcare purposes versus the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers.
So while it’s good the Court decided in favor of the church on this issue, the decision can also be regarded as another razor cut by the feds to destroy state sovereignty in the eyes of low-information citizens who have no idea what state sovereignty is.
Now if we can some how apply this to the discrimination by the government on those who are conservatives, Republicans when the government went after those who oppose government policies by harrasing those people and intimidated those people with the IRS.
Now if we can some how apply this to the discrimination by the government on those who are conservatives, Republicans when the government went after those who oppose government policies by harrasing those people and intimidated those people with the IRS.
I’m shocked it was even a court case to begin with.
If you're a baker and you want to stay in business and not bake that cake, then you would somehow have to get the Supremes to declare that the baking of a cake was a form of speech.
It might be or it might not. Even if you were able to successfully argue that baking a cake was a form of speech, it might backfire and allow in all sorts of other cases, e.g. robbing a bank is an act of speech that I should not be prevented from completing.
But I wouldn't put it past anyone. After all, the Supremes have declared that money = speech and most Freepers seem to be OK with this.
I understand your point. Something to think about.
Still, how do we respond to local government authorities that do not protect basic freedoms? (Kelo vs. New London comes to mind...)
Gee, even wise Latina and the ACLU representative on the Court (Ginsburg) agreed with this decision. Wow.
The town in Arizona had a stupid law, that they refused to change, and the lower courts sided with the town.
Baking the cake, of course, is not speech. But decorating it should be considered so. The decorating is an artistic skill akin to painting a portrait or making a sculpture. Is there any doubt a portrait painter or sculptor could decline to create a custom piece? I think the cake folks can prevail if they would begin considering their products to be edible art, the medium being cake. Conventional artists decline commissioned pieces at their discretion.
It's sad because we have lost the right of free association. It is not only about free speech. It is who we choose to associate with.
AMEN!!!!! and AMEN!!!!!
You might have something there. I hope someone puts forth that argument and sees how far it goes.
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