Supreme Court states Boston ought to have permitted Christian flag on city residential or commercial property

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Supreme Court says Boston should have allowed Christian flag on city property

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A male holds a flag he refers to as “The Christian Flag.” Right- wing Proud Boy and Patriot Prayer followers, “Three-Percenters”, and other armed allies of the right wing showed at Portland, Oregon’s Justice Center on August 22, 2020.

John Rudoff|AP

The Supreme Court all ruled Monday that Boston broke the Constitution when it declined to fly a clearly Christian flag outside municipal government.

The court ruled that considering that the local government had actually permitted other residents to utilize the flagpole to reveal a range of messages, its rejection of the cross-bearing flag broke the free-speech rights of the spiritual group that proposed it.

“Boston’s flag-raising program does not express government speech,” Justice Stephen Breyer composed in the viewpoint of the court, which reversed a lower court’s judgment.

The conflict depended upon the concern of whether the flags being flown under the municipal government program were revealing the federal government’s perspective, or whether the flagpole had actually been opened as much as residents to reveal themselves.

Boston has considering that 2005 permitted lots of flags to be flown on among the 3 flagpoles outdoors municipal government, a few of which revealed the views of personal groups or causes. The city had actually not rejected any demands– up until 2017, when the director of a group called Camp Constitution asked to fly a flag honoring the “contributions of the Christian community.”

The blue-and-white flag plainly bears a solid-red Christian cross. A city commissioner declined the Christian flag, fearing that it may contravene of the Constitution’s restriction on a federal government facility of religious beliefs.

A federal district court and a federal appeals court agreed Boston, holding that the flags being flown from the city-hall flagpole totaled up to federal government speech.

The high court, nevertheless, took a look at “the extent to which Boston actively controlled these flag raisings and shaped the messages the flags sent,” Breyer composed.

“The answer, it seems, is not at all,” his viewpoint stated. “And that is the most salient feature of this case.”

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