Posted on 06/10/2013 10:48:07 AM PDT by kimtom
The US Supreme Court declined on Monday to take up a potentially important First Amendment case that would have examined whether a Colorado appeals court ignored fundamental free-speech protections when it upheld a court order blocking antiabortion protesters from waving poster-sized photos of aborted fetuses at members of a church engaged in an Easter procession. The case sought to test the scope of a demonstrator’s right to use gruesome images as part of an attempt to deliver an effective message in a protest on a public street.
The targeted church, St. John’s in the Wilderness Episcopal Church in Denver, sued the protesters, arguing that the demonstration disrupted the religious procession and subjected young children to graphic and disturbing images during what was meant to be an inspiring display of religious devotion ..
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
"some speech is freer than other speech..."/ sarc
Well the case could be seen from either end. It appears to imply some respect for “religious proceedings” which is not a bad thing. If it wasn’t a church complaining about the gore it might be less sympathetic towards the complainers. Sometimes the Court punts something from their finite list of consideration because it wants a less confused issue to rule upon.
If it were I as the protesters? I’d use color shift on the photos to depict the blood as green, then go ahead and show it.
color shift on the photos to ..”
excellent idea!
but if we water it down....?
Better something than nothing, is how I see it.
If, according to SCOTUS, the Westboro Baptists can hold up "God Hates Fags" signs at military funerals; and if gays can hold Pride parades with nude sex acts in front of all ages in every city and town, what's the problem here? Oh, wait...
I guess they are still in the wilderness!
Well, the forced distancing of the GHF folks from the funerals seems to be still permitted by these “wise solons” in some cases. And if the Pride’s were done around a church service there would be more blowback, I’d think. At some level yes it should be OK to show gory pictures (after all it’s just TISSUE ain’t it, complainers?) in public.
But we work with what circumstances present us with, while trying to bring about better circumstances in the future. If we get too brittle, we end up with nothing.
Oh, at the risk of overyacking this thread, the big schtick of the Westburros is not “God hates fags” but “God hates America.” It seems the ‘fags’ are a convenient excuse for the latter. Like all effective lies there is some truth to it. America makes itself liable to God’s anger by yielding to the homo agenda, no doubt about it. But these people have no constructive spirit at all. They never do anything helpful like protest at Gay Pride parades. They are interested only in damning the people furthest from the problem. That is a move of Hell... not a move of Heaven.
There are a multitude of restrictions on free speech, one such being speech intended to harm, such as the overused “yelling fire in a crowded theater” example.
In this case, the effort was not to expand the public debate, as it seems an effort to traumatize children participating in a sacred religious rite.
The right of free speech also includes the rights of those that want, and those that do not want, to listen to that speech. A public place generally has wide latitude for free speech, because listeners can leave, if they do not wish to hear what someone else is saying.
But an event, especially a religious event, should also be given latitude in not being harassed. In past the courts have found that private events, such as a funeral, can have an exclusion zone for protest.
But in this case, while the religious event was in a public place, the protestors were in effect, trying to deny them their freedom of speech, while using their own. It was a malicious act. That it was for a good cause matters far less.
It looks to me like it was this same church that was too easily in bed with the abortioneers, so one could say that its participants, even the children, ought to be warned about what they’re enabling. And IF “traumatizing” (actually, horrifying) images have to be shown to knock people out of complacency that’s what it takes. IF, of course. The devil is in the details.
With all due respect to the family and friends of the late Terrio Schiavo, the Supreme Court properly ignored the free speech issue referenced by this thread for the same reasons that it ignored the Terri Schiavo case and the Kelo v. New London eminent domain case.
More specifically, some patriots evidently do not understand that the states have always had the power to ** reasonably ** limit our constitutonally protected righs, including those protected by 1A and 5A, 10A protected state power to ** reasonably ** regulate our constitutional rights now limited by post Civil War 14A.
Regarding the Schiavo case, given that the states have never delegated to the feds via the Constitution the specific power to regulate euthanasia, the Founding States had made the 10th Amendment to clarify that government power to regulate such issues are automatically reserved unquely to the states. That’s why SC woudn’t take case imo.
Sadly, I understand that patriots in FL have not caught on to 10A protected state power to address euthanasia, FL laws dealing with issue probably remaining unchanged since Terri with respect to lack of compassion.
As a side note to 10A-protected state power to regulate euthanasia, Secretary Sebelius’s decision to deny girl a lung transplant is constitutonally indefensible because, again, the states have never delegated to feds the power to regulate euthanasia, or healthcare for that matter.
Regarding Kelo eminent domain case, 14th Amendment applied only “government” compensation personal protection aspect of 5A to the states. What 14A did not apply to states was public use requirement, the public use restriction of 5A still applying only to Congress.
In fact, states don’t need an excuse under Constitution to take private property imo, only to compensate for the property thanks to 14A. And patriots are probably not working with their state lawmakers (some states are) to protect their property from their respective states any more than FL patriots have work with their state’s lawmakers to make their state’s euthanasia laws more compassionate.
Again, patriots do not understand Founding States’ division of fed and state government powers enumerated in the Constitution and are consequently getting burned by both the feds and the states.
Finally, what activist justices are not doing with respect to their constitutionally compliant decisions is to explain division of fed and state powers in related decisions, such explanations weakening the growth of unconstitutionally big federal government; can’t have that.
I've just got this to say, "WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH"!
If the cretins from WBC can protest holding the despicable signs they carry at the funerals of soldiers or others, why is it that members of pro-life groups can't hold up signs showing what they are against?
Go into any Catholic church and be prepared to see a gruesome depiction of a man who has been nearly sourged to death... then had a crown of thorns jammed into his head, then he was nailed to a cross and hung to die but not before being lanced in the side.
Doesn’t anyone else find such in the least bit disturbing? And every Church has this statue like right there at the front above the altar.
“..Doesn’t anyone else find such in the least bit disturbing..”
what is disturbing, a depiction of a man dying for our sins, or
the imagery of man’s cruelty to man?
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