The Supreme Court has ruled that Boston’s efforts to block a Christian group from flying a Christian flag while allowing other private groups to raise their flags on a public community flagpole was a violation of that group’s first amendment rights.
From www.cnn.com
2022-05-02 15:43:00
Excerpt:
The court said that the flag display amounted to a public forum, and because many other groups were allowed to raise their flags in celebration of the Boston community, the city could not discriminate on the basis of the religious group’s viewpoint without violating the Constitution.
“We conclude that, on balance, Boston did not make the raising and flying of private groups’ flags a form of government speech,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote.
The case was filed in 2018 after a Boston official denied the application by the group Camp Constitution to raise a flag — described as “Christian” in the application — on one of the three flagpoles outside Boston’s city hall. The group is an all-volunteer association that seeks to “enhance understanding of the country’s Judeo-Christian moral heritage.”
Central to the case was whether the flagpole is perceived as an example of government speech. If so, the city has a right to limit displays without violating free speech principles. The Free Speech Clause of the Constitution restricts government regulation of private speech, it does not regulate government speech. But if, on the other hand, the display amounts to private speech, in a government-created forum where others are invited to express their views, the government cannot discriminate based on the viewpoint of one of the speakers.
