Hate Group Wins “Christian Flag” Case Before SCOTUS

Hate Group Wins “Christian Flag” Case Before SCOTUS

NBC News reports:

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Monday that the city of Boston violated the Constitution when it refused to let a local organization fly a Christian flag in front of city hall.

While the case had religious overtones, the decision was fundamentally about free speech rights. The court said the city created a public forum, open to all comers, when it allowed organizations to use a flagpole in front of City Hall for commemorative events. Denying the same treatment for the Christian flag was a violation of free expression, it said.

“When the government encourages diverse expression — say, by creating a forum for debate — the First Amendment prevents it from discriminating against speakers based on their viewpoint,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the decision.

CNN reports:

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.”

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, said that though the court relied upon “history, the public’s perception of who is speaking, and the extent to which the government has exercised control over speech” to determine that the flag-raising program did not amount to government speech, he would have analyzed the case based on a more exacting definition of what constitutes government speech.

Under a more narrow definition of government speech, Alito wrote that it occurs “if — but only if” a government “purposefully expresses a message of its own through persons authorized to speak on its behalf.”

USA Today reports:

“This case is so much more significant than a flag,” said Mathew Staver, the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal group that represented Camp Constitution. “Boston openly discriminated against viewpoints it disfavored when it opened the flagpoles to all applicants and then excluded Christian viewpoints.”

Boston said it worried that losing the case would mean it might someday be required to fly a flag from a neo-Nazi group or an al-Qaida flag. Another option: The city could avoid flying flags inconsistent with its views by not flying any third-party flags in the first place.

Supreme Court says Boston violated the First Amendment rights of a group seeking to raise a Christian flag outside City Hallhttps://t.co/aeA5GNH7kx
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) May 2, 2022

KnownDonorDad • 11 hours ago

I say immediately ban third-party flags going forward BEFORE the Christian fascist flag has a turn to fly. Get on it, Boston city council.

Mrs. Councillor Nugent KnownDonorDad • 10 hours ago

I would imagine that that was the real reason for the case: to deny the Pride flag, etc. In that case by all means move any Pride flags off public property. Then let them try to fly theirs, it could fly alright.

Friday J.Martindale • 10 hours ago

No, it doesn’t, cause the Pride flag represents social acceptance and the Christian nationalist flag represents dominionism and overthrowing… the government?

They’re literally trying to use the government to mark territory by favoring their own version of their own religion, and claiming that that’s an equivalent ‘viewpoint’ cause their version of their religion hates the people the Pride flag shows acceptance of? Either way they’re using the government to impose their religion and silence minority voices.

Guestfornow TnCTampa • 10 hours ago

The Christian superpower of always claiming constant victimhood and persecution will never allow that. They want special rights.

For their superpower, they get the keys to the kingdom. With those keys they are free to hate and harm as they originally wanted to do. The Muslim superpower of not depicting the profit (spelled that way on purpose) Mohamed is weak compared to the Christian superpower.

Christians lie about everything. They will twist this decision to get their wants

Darreth Guestfornow • 10 hours ago • edited

Don’t be surprised when ALEC forces legislation thru Red States to force a Christian flag to fly all the time now if a third flagpole is available.

These are the flagpoles in question.

Unlike many city halls, Boston does not have a flagpole on top of the building. These poles serve that purpose.

To me, that makes SCOTUS absolutely wrong. A Christian (or any other religious) flag could reasonably be seen as endorsing religion.

Darreth BobSF_94117 • 10 hours ago

That’s precisely what the SCOTUS did here. And that’s why the SCOTUS needs to be expanded to balance secularists with the current crop of Dominionists.

thatotherjean • 11 hours ago

Ugh. The decision was not based on religion, but it will be taken that way by every right-wing Christian religious group. I hope the Satanists are taking notes.

The_Wretched thatotherjean • 10 hours ago

The decision was based on the idea that a flag outside the governmental building wasn’t ‘governmental speech’. I think that’s a bizarre outcome.

Friday thatotherjean • 10 hours ago

What SCOTUS is doing is pretending it’s just a ‘viewpoint’ and not an imposition of an establishment of religion when the CHristians want to impose their religion, either with their DOminionist flag or removing any symbols representing people they want to eliminate from the public square.

BobSF_94117 Houndentenor • 11 hours ago

These are the official flag poles of the city, displaying the national and state flags.

Yes, the third pole is open to civic groups BUT flying a religious flag “on top of city hall” is an endorsement of religion. It’s absurd that SCOTUS ignored that aspect. Religion is privileged in this country but that comes with a few restrictions, which help guarantee the freedom, not hinder it.

Houndentenor BobSF_94117 • 10 hours ago

There was zero chance that any of the six Federalist Society picks for SCOTUS would agree to ban all religious displays from government buildings. That is a nonstarter of an argument. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but this is the court we got from not enough Democrats turning out in 2000 and 2016. This is what we have to deal with now. Just wait and see what they do with Roe and Obergefell.

JWC • 10 hours ago

Let’s just cut to the chase Their objection was to a PRIDE flag It’s not that they want their flag to be flown its that the don’t want a PRIDE flag flown

TexasBoy • 10 hours ago • edited

Now apply this Free Speech thingy to Disney and Florida…

Darreth • 10 hours ago

Now that the Dominionists have won this nanometer case they will take a light year. So, this will be REPLICATED across the nation now. Dominionists will get more and more wins as time goes by.

Schooling Ron DeSantis

Join Mrs. Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian™, as she instructs Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on CRT: “Christian Reactionary Teaching.” Glory.

In shift, Germany could back immediate EU ban on Russian oil

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/civilians-evacuated-mariupol-pelosi-meets-ukraines-zelenskiy-2022-05-02/

EU ministers discuss Russian energy supplies

Civilians trying to leave Mariupol after weeks of siege

Moscow steps up assault in Ukraine’s south, eastern Donbas

KYIV/LVIV, May 2 (Reuters) – The European Union was preparing sanctions on Russian oil sales over its invasion of Ukraine after a major shift on Monday by Germany, Russia’s biggest energy customer, that could deprive Moscow of a large revenue stream within days.

The European Commission is expected to propose a sixth package of EU sanctions this week against Russia over its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, including a possible embargo on buying Russian oil.

Kyiv says Russia’s energy exports to Europe, so far largely exempt from international sanctions, are funding the Kremlin war effort with millions of euros every day.

“This package should include clear steps to block Russia’s revenues from energy resources,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Germany said on Monday it was prepared to back an immediate EU embargo on Russian oil.

“We have managed to reach a situation where Germany is able to bear an oil embargo,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said. read more

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has been more cautious than other Western leaders in backing Ukraine, has been under growing pressure to take a firmer line.

Scholz vowed sanctions will not be lifted until Russian President Vladimir Putin signs a peace deal with Ukraine that Kyiv can support, he said in an interview with ZDF public television. read more

Weaning Europe off Russian oil is likely to be easier than reducing dependence on Russian natural gas. Moscow has demanded European customers pay for gas in rubles, which the EU rejects. Last week, Moscow cut off supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.

EU ministers meeting on Monday warned that complying in full with Moscow’s demand for gas payments in roubles would breach existing EU sanctions.

Ambassadors from EU countries will discuss the proposed oil sanctions when they meet on Wednesday.

The first civilians to be evacuated from a giant steel plant in Mariupol arrived on Monday in the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia after an overnight bus journey across the front-line.

Ukraine says hundreds of civilians have been trapped inside the Azovstal plant along with the city’s last Ukrainian defenders. Dozens were able to leave on Sunday in an evacuation organised by the United Nations, the first to escape since Putin ordered the plant barricaded last week.

Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, 39, a deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, told Reuters from inside the plant that fighters could hear voices of women, children and elderly people trapped below ground, and lacked the equipment to dig them out. read more

“We were planning to tear up the bunkers, the entrance to which is blocked, but all night into Monday naval artillery and barrel artillery were firing. All day today aviation has been working, dropping bombs,” Palamar said by Zoom.

Efforts to organise the evacuation of civilians from other parts of the city, now held by the Russians, ran into delays. Ukraine says 100,000 people are still in the ruined city, enduring desperate conditions after months of Russian siege.

“Our house is completely destroyed. We had a two-story building, it’s not there anymore. It burned to the ground,” said Natalya Tsyntomirska, a Mariupol native who reached Zaporizhzhia on Monday in a funeral service van.

Zelenskiy said the evacuation effort was continuing and he expected more movement of people through humanitarian corridors on Tuesday from Berdyansk, Tokmak and Vasylivka.

For its part, Kyiv hopes a massive influx of Western military aid will allow it to repel that assault and then turn the tide with a counter-attack.

Russian forces shelled the city of Kharkiv five times on Monday, injuring five people, according to regional governor Oleh Sinehubov. Further south, Izyum remained a battleground, with most of the houses in the city destroyed, he said.

After being forced to abandon an assault on Kyiv at the end of March, Russia launched a major offensive in eastern Ukraine focused on the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, parts of which were already held by Russian-backed separatists before the invasion. Russian troops are now trying to encircle a large Ukrainian force there, attacking from three directions with massive bombardment along the front.

Ukraine’s military said on Monday Russian forces were trying to take over the frontline Luhansk province town of Rubizhne and prepare an assault on nearby Sievierodonetsk.

The heaviest clashes were taking place around Popasna, farther south. Shelling was so intense it was not possible to collect bodies, said regional Governor Serhiy Gaidai.

”I don’t even want to speak about what’s happening with the people living in Popasna, Rubizhne and Novotoshkivske right now. These cities simply don’t exist anymore. They have completely destroyed them.”

Russia has also been striking targets far from the front line with missiles. A 14-year-old boy was killed and a 17-year-old girl was wounded in a missile strike in the southern port of Odesa when a missile hit a dormitory, Zelenskiy said. read more

Elagabalus • 6 hours ago

A courageous move on Germany’s part. It’s going to hit them hard in the pocketbook, but kudos to them for taking the plunge anyway for all the right reasons. If we experienced the same degree of economic impact as Germany’s about to experience the deplorables would be blaming it all on Biden then lighting up their tiki torches to march in the streets in thug gangs demanding Biden’s head on a stick.

J.D. Vance parrots a Tucker Carlson conspiracy theory that Biden is intentionally allowing fentanyl to cross the border to kill Trump voters

https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/jd-vance-parrots-tucker-carlson-conspiracy-theory-biden-intentionally-allowing

Is there a conspiracy theory these Republican right wingers won’t buy? Seriously you have to believe every border patrol officer, most who were over the last few years ripping babies from mother’s arms to sperate families, are liberals who support Biden enough to let drugs into the country specifically to be delivered to right wingers. Who is forcing these right wingers to take the drugs? Or do right wingers like the rest of the country have personal problems and need help with addiction?

The new right faux-populists blame immigration for opioid overdoses. It’s an old trick with a long, racist history.

On Friday, Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance pushed an anti-immigration conspiracy theory that alleged President Joe Biden was deliberately allowing drug smugglers to import fentanyl to the United States to kill Donald Trump voters. The theory has also been put forward by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, whom the New York Times recently characterized as running “what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news.”

Vance made the allegations in a recent interview with Jim Hoft, founder of the far-right site Gateway Pundit. “If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl,” Vance told Hoft, later adding: “It does look intentional. It’s like Joe Biden wants to punish the people who didn’t vote for him. And opening up the floodgates to the border is one way to do it.”

This allegation sounds remarkably similar to a line of argument Carlson used on his February 8 show. After stoking fear about a Biden administration harm reduction policy for people who use crack, Carlson pivoted to the opioid overdose crisis. “I seem to remember reading somewhere that more than 100,000 Americans died last year from opioid ODs. What are we doing about that? Well, good question, and the answer is nothing,” Carlson said.

He then offered an explanation that hinged on a lie that Biden is pursuing an “equity agenda” that deliberately seeks to benefit people of color at the expense of white people, toward the ultimate goal of their political subjugation. “Those 100,000 Americans weren’t from officially marginalized groups. Their deaths have nothing to do with the equity agenda. In fact, their deaths may have helped the equity agenda by changing the demographics of the country in a way that benefits the Democratic Party,” Carlson said. “So as far as the Biden administration is concerned, it’s not a bad trend.”

Carlson concluded that although the United States had suffered high levels of overdose deaths, “these are exactly the kind of people the administration hates anyway, so with equity in mind, the White House plans to continue allowing as much fentanyl as possible to come into this country through Mexico.” In reality, border seizures of fentanyl in the final year of Trump’s term largely mirror the current rates under Biden. More broadly, the overdose epidemic in the United States is a complicated phenomenon, driven by drug manufacturers, a for-profit health care system, and economic precarity that’s resulted from deindustrialization and an overall decline in the power of organized labor. It is not caused by immigrants.

It’s not surprising that Vance might adopt this talking point from Carlson. His political life is dependent on the Trump-Carlson wing of the Republican Party, and his turnaround from flagging candidate to front-runner came in the wake of Trump’s endorsement. Vance’s main opponent in the Republican primary, Josh Mandel, has also modeled himself after Trump, but the increasingly acrimonious rivalry shows that simply adopting the former president’s bigoted rhetoric isn’t always enough to avoid the dreaded “establishment candidate” label, as Don Trump Jr. referred to Mandel on Twitter.

Beyond Trump and Carlson, Vance is a creation of GOP megadonor Peter Thiel, the far-right billionaire with ties to the faux-populist “New Right,” as well as to overt white nationalists. Last year, Thiel co-launched a new project called the Rockbridge Network that seeks to reshape the Republican Party in Thiel’s image. Vance, and his fellow Senate candidate Blake Masters, were recipients of Thiel donations totaling at least $10 million apiece.

This group often pays lip service to a narrow conception of the working class — basically white men in hard hats and their wives — but their pro-worker rhetoric is predicated on blaming immigrants for falling wages, and increased crime and drug use. Given the long history of associating immigrant communities with drug crime, stretching back to anti-Chinese racism around opium and anti-Mexican racism around marijuana, it’s not shocking that Carlson and Vance would recycle these tropes. But, as Vance might say, it does look intentional.

“It does look intentional. It’s like Joe Biden wants to punish the people who didn’t vote for him.” — JD Vance, arguing Biden is purposely flooding the country with fentanyl to get revenge on Trump voters pic.twitter.com/PGAFPH9BWQ
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) April 30, 2022

Rick Blackstone LaRue Williams • 5 hours ago

So is JD saying MAGA folks are a bunch of druggies? That would explain a LOT.

StuckNtexas Rick Blackstone LaRue Williams • 5 hours ago

If it’ll help thin the herd, I volunteer to smuggle. Can I set up a free samples table at the Republican National Convention?

Ann Kah • 5 hours ago

Is this an admission that the Trumpsters are drug addicts?

Steverino • 5 hours ago

Cute, considering COVID-19 has killed far more MAGAts, by their own stupidity.

Friday • 5 hours ago

The Party Of Personal Responsibility Blames Democrat For Their Own Actions Again.

TrollopeReader • 4 hours ago

Huh … he should be asked where the fentanyl is coming in from … cuz’ cousin Wheels Abbott said his Rangers found …zero .. drugs on their “border inspections”

Kelly Lape • 5 hours ago

So the GOP’s position is that Republican voters are ignorant drug addicts buying street drugs for recreational use? Way to respect the electorate.

GOP gubernatorial candidate shares photo of self in front of swastika

GOP gubernatorial candidate shares photo of self in front of swastika

A longshot candidate challenging Ohio’s incumbent governor in a Republican primary shared a photo of himself in front of a sign depicting an image of syringes arranged as a swastika — the chosen symbol of Nazi Germany as it waged a systematic slaughter of millions of Jews and others in Europe.

https://twitter.com/JoeBlystone22/status/1520051398146244609?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1520051398146244609%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fohiocapitaljournal.com%2F2022%2F05%2F02%2Fgop-gubernatorial-candidate-shares-photo-of-self-in-front-of-swastika%2F

Joe Blystone, a cattle farmer often seen campaigning in a cowboy hat and bushy beard, posted a photo Friday on his campaign’s Twitter account. It shows him standing in front of a banner for a local of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.

Behind him, a man holds a sign reading “NO JAB NO JOB” — presumably a statement in opposition to employers requiring vaccination as a term of employment. That sign shows the swastika-syringes image.

Blystone’s campaign did not respond to questions about why Blystone is distributing a photo of himself in front of Nazi imagery. The local and national offices of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers did not respond to inquiries.

“I’m not anti-vax. I’m not anti-mask. I’m pro-choice,” Blystone said in a March interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer. “If you want to wear a mask, wear a mask. If you want to get a vax, get a vax. It shouldn’t be our government pushing you one way or another.”

Both Blystone and challenger Jim Renacci are seeking to oust incumbent Gov. Mike DeWine in the Republican primary. Election Day is Tuesday, May 3. The Republican victor will take on one of two candidates running for the Democratic ticket.

The photo follows a pattern of Nazi imagery and rhetoric popping up in conservative political demonstrations against coronavirus restrictions and vaccine mandates.

A man carrying an anti-Semitic sign joined a protest outside the Bexley home of then-Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton. Other protesters brought guns. Photo courtesy of Katie Forbes.

In April 2020, Ohio Senator Andrew Brenner pledged not to allow Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton to turn the state into Nazi Germany. Rep. Kris Jordan connected masks, vaccines, and vaccination records to the Holocaust. U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel made similar comments. Rep. Nino Vitale called Acton, who is Jewish, a “globalist health director.” The term “globalist” is used as an anti-Semitic slur. Earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson compared a requirement to show proof of vaccination for bars and restaurants in Washington D.C. to Nazi officials demanding identification from Jewish citizens.

Meanwhile, citizens have been seen hoisting Nazi imagery outside the Statehouse during a coronavirus protest and a sign with a swastika at an anti-vaccine protest outside of a League of Women Voters event. One alleged neo-Nazi with a criminal history was seen during the lockdown protests of April 2020 holding a sign showing a picture of a rat with the Star of David on its side and “The Real Plague” above it. At an anti-mask demonstration at a September 2021 schoolboard meeting in Worthington, two demonstrators were accused of performing Nazi salutes, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

“Medical procedures designed to save lives are not comparable to the Holocaust, in which six million Jews and millions of others were murdered,” said Sara Scheinbach, a senior associate regional director of the Cleveland region of the Anti-Defamation League, which advocates against anti-Semitism.

“All leaders, especially politicians, should call out these obscene comparisons, rather than celebrate them.”

Nazi officials implemented rules forcing Jewish people to wear identifying badges between 1939 and 1945, according to the U.S. Holocaust Museum. It was part of a campaign to stigmatize and dehumanize Jews and segregate and control them before deporting them to concentration camps.

The museum spoke out against a national leader of the anti-vaccination movement who said at a rally that things are worse today than they were for Anne Frank, a teenaged girl who died along with most her family during the Holocaust.

“Making reckless comparisons to the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews, for a political agenda is outrageous and deeply offensive,” the museum said in a statement. “Those who carelessly invoke Anne Frank, the star badge, and the Nuremberg Trials exploit history and the consequences of hate.”