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Supreme Court to consider case of former Bircher who wants to broadcast his Christianity from a City Hall Plaza flagpole
By adamg on Thu, 09/30/2021 - 4:32pm
Shurtleff's flag.
Politico reports the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Hal Shurtleff's case that he has a right to use a city-owned flagpole to get his Christianity on.
Shurtleff, who helped lead a successful effort to take over the Republican ward committee in West Roxbury in 2020, has repeatedly lost his case before federal courts in Boston, most recently in January. That's when the US Court of Appeals ruled that the city has its own First Amendment rights, that the flag pole is not a "public forum" and that the city has not discriminated against Shurtleff because it bars all explicitly religious flags from the pole - and that religious symbols on some of the national flags it has allowed, such as Portugal's, do not mean the city is endorsing a particular form of Christianity.
But his lawyers at a Florida firm that specializes in such cases took a chance that a more conservative Supreme Court might want to ponder the issue, and they proved right.
City Hall has long allowed use of flagpoles outside City Hall to promote countries whose officials are visiting Boston as well as for various social issues.
In repeated rulings, both US District Court Judge Denise Casper and the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston have held that, unlike City Hall Plaza itself, which anybody can rent out, and which are a "public forum" where the city can't try to squelch what is said there, the flagpoles themselves have always been a form of "government speech" - basically a place for the city itself to express itself under its own First Amendment rights.
Shurtleff, who has run a summer camp to indoctrinate kids with his particular view of the Constitution - which led to his break with the Birchers, who wanted him to give the camp up - has been trying to get his flag up one of the poles since 2017.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
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Comments
should be interesting to see,
should be interesting to see, and if successful, i imagine the satanic temple will use it as further justification to be permitted to do the invocation at council meetings which they have so sought.
Original US flag and state
Original US flag and state flag only. No crybaby altered US special interest flags. No gay flags. No foreign flags. No more POW flags. Problem solved.
I was with you until
You said now POW flag.
Why? What do you know about that flag?
Why is it sacred? Whose purpose did it serve? Why is it still ubiquitous?
Google is your friend
The POW/MIA flag is written in to the laws of our nation by acts of Congress. It has to be flown at federal properties, at least on specific days. I would say that any flag required to be flown federally has standing to be flown at state and municipal properties.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/902
https://www.pow-miafamilies.org/history-of-the-powmia-flag.html
It does it’s job, which is to
It does it’s job, which is to dramatize the Vietnam War in a way that helps us save face. Guess that’s a good reason to have it everywhere. It does what flags always do, I suppose, but in this case it’s explicit if you know anything about it.
The Grand Union flag?
Does the city even own one of those?
And you won't even allow the city to fly its own flag? Almost as harsh as excluding the POW/MIA flag.
Original as in unaltered for
Original as in unaltered for right-wing focused victimhood hoarding purposes.
Balkanization
I myself would certainly make an exception for the POW/MIA flag, but other than that I tend to agree with the poster that said no flag but country and state (and yes, city). There's too much balkanization going on. If we are a welcoming country, better we welcome all under our flag than balkanize into so many little fiefdoms.
Agreed
Too much controversy. Keep it simple with US / Mass.
Nope
Not the way it works.
1st Amendment is honored in how the city bans religious flags. The policy is sound, the jackasses are entirely on the right wing.
Swirly says nope. Guess that
Swirly says nope. Guess that’s the end Of it.
Precident
This has been litigated numerous times.
Sorry it stings, but...
...she's right. Google "establishment clause".
I think you’re correct
I have no problem with the rainbow flag or POW flag flying, but it’s clear that we live in a time where edge lords/trolls are going to abuse this feature of civic life to either a.) push the envelope to fly various versions of extremist symbols or b.) re-cast benign symbols such as a rainbow flag or perhaps a Juneteenth flag as “extremist” or “radical”. Good faith goes out the window and then everything becomes contested.
Then penalize the trolls
We don't have to give into the stupid - just enforce consequences.
That's like "well boys find girls distracting so we just have to penalize girls with ridiculous dress codes". Or "women shouldn't be out after dark alone".
I *want* to agree with you
But the “Thin Blue Line” flag is a white supremacist symbol. Many white supremacists would privately and enthusiastically agree, but in public they would forward the disingenuous “fallen heroes” propaganda. That flag should not be flown at City Hall. And what if someone wanted to fly an “abortion is murder” flag?
I don’t know how a group gets its flag flown—and my next comment may be redundant, please indulge my ignorance—but maybe the city gets around this by making a law that the full city council needs to resolve that any given flag is flown? You know, representitive democracy at work. But I guess that could still expose the city and city council to charges discrimination…I don’t know. It’s seems like a waste of bandwidth. The city and city council has other vehicles to recognize groups that deserve recognition.
One man's "benign" symbol is
One man's "benign" symbol is another man's "extremist" symbol. This American Life had a very informative discussion about this point as it relates to the Confederate flag.
Confederate flag = white power
I’m thinking that an episode from 1997 might contain some outdated points of view.
In 2021, I have ceased being interested in litigating the question of whether or not the battle flag of a group that waged bloody war on the United States in defense of the institutions of white supremacy and human slavery, and is used by both today’s KKK and by neo-Nazis in Germany as a substitute for Third Reich regalia is actually “heritage” and nothing to do with hate.
It’s clear that the stars and bars is a symbol of violence and hate and there is no nuance to be had.
Confederate flag = Enemy Flag
Would you support the USSR Flag, too?
That was also the flag of an enemy.
Of course you would support a Nazi flag - even though that was the flag of an enemy vanquished in battle, too.
TL/DR: the Confederate flag is the flag of a foreign enemy
To be foreign…
…. the Confederacy would have had to be a separate country. It’s the flag of treason and traitors.
Gee, I wonder how this
Gee, I wonder how the cadre of Federalist Society reactionaries in the SCOTUS will rule on this one.
The funny thing about the
The funny thing about the Supreme Court is the way it voted in the Texas license plate case a few years ago. The majority said personalized/vanity/specialty license plates represented "state speech" meaning the state was free to censor whatever they want.
But, the split was the four liberal justices plus one Clarence Thomas in the majority, with the four conservative justices dissenting. You gotta wonder what the split would have been if the Texas specialty plate at the center of the case came from a pro-choice group and depicted a coat-hanger, as opposed to a design based on Confederate flag.
Hal Shurtleff is why …
… we can’t have nice flags.