The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared to be leaning against a program in Boston in which the city raises the flag of third-party groups outside City Hall to promote diversity and other messages but declined to fly a Christian flag.
Boston argued that the flags on its flagpole are government speech and that city officials may choose the messages they want to convey. Justices questioned whether the city relinquished control of that message by approving just about every other request to fly a flag except for the one made by the religious group in 2017.
"Is it consistent with the principles of the free speech clause if you say anybody can speak, except we are going to monitor what is said and we're not going to allow religious speech?" Associate Justice Samuel Alito asked. "The court has said you can't do that."
The religious group that made the request, Camp Constitution, argued that Boston's flagpole is a public forum, a concept in First Amendment law used by courts to help analyze when the government may regulate speech on public property. The government can't restrict speech based on a speaker's viewpoint in a public forum.
..."To an ordinary observer walking past City Hall, if you see a flag on the pole, you think it's City Hall speaking," said Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who took part in the arguments Tuesday remotely from her chambers at the Supreme Court building.
..."If you look at the lack of control over this flagpole, it's hard not to think of it as a public forum," said Associate Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court's liberal bloc....
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Originally Posted by Peter1469
