Ah, for the old days when nuance meant something

@dancingtongue no your not getting the point of the freedom of religion.

Free speech never was to over rule religion, it was the other way around!

NO agency should be able to fly a flag! Not the KKK, not the Nazis, not any religious group!

This ruling will allow the KKK and Nazi groups to fly a flags as well!

It's idiotic!

NO group should be able to fly a fly other than a government flag!

BTW you asked switch groups! Those two and a whole lot more!

@DeWayfarer KKK, Nazis, and other groups that embrace White Supremacy would not be protected by Free Speech because of the prohibitions on hatred messages. Actually easier to prohibit them on Free Speech than if they attempted to hide behind Religious protection.

I agree that Boston created their problem by having this flag pole without much thought given to defensible rules on how it could be used. I assume it was part of the Boston Strong movement following the Marathon bombing. But as soon as you start letting sports teams, Gay Pride organizations, Black Lives Matter fly their banners, you better have some well-defined guidelines or allow anyone to fly their flag.

@dancingtongue I must disagree! This will make it far easier for them to fly their flags with impunity!

Special if they consider free speech takes presidence over freedom of religion! They'll be clamoring just to do just that everywhere. Including the statues of Lee!

Free speech doesn't overrule freedom of religion. Yet that's exactly what this ruling does!

The laws governing hate speech to not apply to the US Constitution.

Both free speech and freedom of religion are apart of the constitution, hence the ruling in the first place. The supreme court only rules on issues of the constitution.

Hate speech laws were made by Congress yet are not apart of the constitution.

This ruling will knock down the very hate speech laws you are referring to. Because hate speech isn't in the constitution.

@SomeMichGuy @Carla It was a Christian group that filed suit for being excluded.

@SomeMichGuy @Carla Now that group, Camp Constitution, clearly has a political agenda. They organize family camping outings to teach their view that the U.S. was founded on Judeo-Christian teachings and promote free enterprise over socialism. But the Court rightly, IMHO, said if you create a public forum, as this particular flag pole has been designated and used, you can't exclude groups because you don't like what they are saying.

@dancingtongue ...in part because that exclusion is a de facto violation of the Establishment clause.

@SatyrService Thanks, but I have it on good authority that it is narrow and intolerant and I am a hayseed.

@MarmeeMarch I'm sorry, but freedom of religion includes freedom [i]from[/i] religion, or it doesn't work. And I would hardly call them a fringe group. They're just a bunch of people who don't believe the traditionally given "evidence" for any of the gods.

@MarmeeMarch [quote] what "trappings" are you talking about ? - So do you think we should have an Atheist flag ?[/quote]

By trappings I mean everything from the tendency of some governments to want to display crosses and nativity scenes on government buildings to the Ten Commandments on Courthouses to In God We Trust in courts and on our money. It is all pushing one religious belief on the entire populace which hardly is separation of state and religion.

And I'm not advocating the flying of anyone's flag; only saying that if you have a community forum flag pole to show support for community groups it should be a level playing field for all, as SCOTUS ruled. If you will go back to my original post, it didn't even have to do so much with the SCOTUS decision as with the twisted impression the headline USA Today gave it, implying SCOTUS was forcing the city to fly Christian flags on government buildings provoking the impression of yet another war between the polar extremes. And here we are, way off topic, doing just that.