Boston violated First Amendment when it rejected Christian flag, court unanimously rules

Boston violated First Amendment when it rejected Christian flag, court unanimously rules​

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Monday that the city of Boston violated the Constitution when it rejected an application to fly a Christian flag on one of the three flagpoles in front of city hall. Because the city program that allowed other private groups to raise and fly their own flags was not speech by the city, the court held, the city could not refuse permission to fly a particular flag because of the views that it expressed.
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In this case, Breyer reasoned, although there is a long history of flags conveying “important messages about government” – ranging from respect for someone who has died to the presence of a foreign leader at Blair House, sometimes dubbed “the President’s guest house” – Boston has also “allowed its flag to be lowered and other flags to be raised with some regularity.” As a result, Breyer suggested, members of the public might not necessarily believe that all of the flags at city hall were conveying the city’s message. Moreover, Breyer continued, and perhaps most importantly, the city wielded virtually no control over the messages that the flags in the program conveyed: It had no record of denying any flag-raising requests before Shurtleff, and it did not have any guidelines about what flags were permitted under the program. And because the flag-raising program was not speech by the city, Breyer concluded, the city’s denial of Shurtleff’s request for the sole reason that the flag promoted Christianity discriminated against Shurtleff and Camp Constitution in violation of the First Amendment’s free speech clause.

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Justice Samuel Alito agreed that the city had violated the First Amendment when it rejected Shurtleff’s request, but – in an opinion joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch – he disagreed with the majority’s reasoning.
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Gorsuch penned his own opinion – joined by Thomas – concurring in the judgment. The error at the core of this case, Gorsuch wrote, was the city’s decision to reject Shurtleff’s request because it feared that allowing him to fly his flag would violate the establishment clause. Gorsuch criticized the Supreme Court’s 1971 decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman, which outlined a multi-factor test for whether a government law or practice violates the establishment clause. That test, Gorsuch wrote, “has long since been exposed as an anomaly or a mistake,” and the Supreme Court has not applied it “for nearly two decades.” Yet state and local governments continue to rely on it, just as Boston did here – a strategy, Gorsuch suggested, that was “as risky as it was unsound.” Because Lemon “ignored the original meaning of the Establishment Clause,” “disregarded mountains of precedent,” and “substituted a serious constitutional inquiry with a guessing game,” Gorsuch concluded, state and local governments should follow the lead of the Supreme Court, which “long ago interred Lemon,” and “let it lie.”

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lemmiwinx said:

Keeping religious flags off of city flagpoles is a good policy. Or else you're going to see all kinds of religious freaks demanding their flags be displayed.

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LittleNipper said:

There are only two flags that should be flown over government buildings; the country flag and the state flag. Gay flags, Missing in action flags, opinion flags, abortion flags ------- NONE of this should be flown on public buildings.

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Rich2018 said:

Absolutely right

If the court rules that the religious flag must be flown, because another flag is, then ban them both.

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LittleNipper said:

I totally agree. Flags of various organizations is a modern phenomena. I remember only one flag flying in my classroom in public school ----- and that was the American Flag. And the only pictures displayed were that of Washington and Lincoln. The flags at the courthouses in NJ were that of the American Flag and the State Flag. The only thing I do remember was that at Christmastime the area clubs would set up a nativity scene by the police station, but this was totally done without any cost to the township and the fire department would play Santa Claus to the kid's enjoyment. This at the time was nothing out of the ordinary.

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