The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday that Boston violated the Constitution by refusing to allow a Christian group to fly its flag outside City Hall while allowing other organizations to fly their banners.
The justices said the city had run afoul of free speech protections by rejecting a request by Camp Constitution, a religious group, to fly a Christian flag with the Latin cross to mark Constitution Day and honor the contribution civics of the Christian community.
A critical question in the case was whether Boston, by making a flagpole in City Hall available to certain outside groups, had created a forum for private talk, or whether flying third-party flags amounted to a government-endorsed message. government. .
In a 9-0 decision written by Judge Stephen Breyer, the court ruled that because Boston’s flag-flying tradition did not amount to a government speech, the city’s refusal to fly the Camp Constitution flag in based on his religious point of view violated the group’s freedom of expression.
“When a government does not speak for itself, it cannot exclude speech based on ‘religious point of view,’” Breyer wrote, citing Supreme Court precedent. “Doing so ‘constitutes impermissible viewpoint discrimination.'”
Although the court ultimately ruled against Boston, it showed some sympathy for the city’s argument that third-party flags might be seen by a common observer as government speech. The flagpole in question, when not used in third-party ceremonies, typically flies the flag of the city of Boston and is adjacent to an American flag and flag of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that are displayed on a regular basis. standing outside City Hall.
But Breyer wrote that Boston had “allowed its flag to be lowered and other flags to be raised with some regularity.” He noted that prior to its dispute with Camp Constitution, Boston had approved roughly 50 flags from 2005 to 2017 to be flown in more than 280 short ceremonies, where participants typically gathered around the flagpole.
“Petitioners [Camp Constitution] To say that a pedestrian who catches a glimpse of a flag other than Boston’s on the third flagpole could simply look out into the plaza, see a group of private citizens performing a ceremony without the city present, and associate the new flag with them, not with Boston,” he wrote. . “So, even if the public would normally associate a flag’s message with Boston, that’s not necessarily true for the flags in question here.”
The opinion reversed lower court decisions that sided with Boston.
Monday’s ruling also favored the position advanced by the Biden administration, which sided with Camp Constitution. The administration argued that Boston had not exercised the degree of control over its flag policy that is usually associated with government speech, likening the flag-raising program to an “open mic night.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote one of three separate opinions that concurred with the court’s ruling. He wrote that the dispute boiled down to a Boston city official’s misinterpretation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another, or favoring religion over secular causes.
“However, as this Court has repeatedly made clear, a government does not violate the Establishment Clause simply because it treats religious persons, organizations, and speech the same as secular persons, organizations, and speech in public programs, benefits, facilities and the like. Kavanaugh wrote. “In contrast, a government violates the Constitution when (as here) it excludes religious individuals, organizations, or speech because of their religion from public programs, benefits, facilities, and the like.”
Updated at 11:21 am
Reference-thehill.com