fraud is fraud is fraud - someone gains something of value by pretending to be something they are not, even if it is only the unjustifable respect and trust of someone else. Since when does freedom of speech permit commission of fraud? If this law does not stand, we have become a hopeless legal-pretzel of a nation groping in the dark to find our way.
If you apply for a job for which there is a veterans' preference in hiring, and lie about having served, that is fraud.
If you tell an acquaintance you were in combat in Vietnam when that's not true, sorry, that's not prosecutable as fraud. If it was, we might as well haul Bush Sr. into court for having said "no new taxes".
That’s basically the way I feel about it.
They strain at gnats.
How about I put on a bunch of Police decorations and make myself look like a retired policeman in order to gain advantages in whatever endevor I choose.
To try and defend this fraud by calling it free speech is insane. It is a very well defined issue. If you put on Decorations and pretend to be a hero in order to gain something, most often political office, it should be very easy for any sane person to say that is wrong.
Of course they have already ruled that is is ok for politicians to lie sigh.....
Lawyers, I hate them all, except Perry Mason, the character not the man.