The U.S. Constitution never explicitly mentions God or the divine. In fact, God or the divine is mentioned at least once in each of the 50 state constitutions.
Fun Fact of the Day
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Tag Archives: First Amendment
Fun Fact of the Day
“Hate speech” (speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other traits) is protected in the US by the First Amendment.
Fun Fact of the Day
In Schenck v. United States (1919), the Supreme Court invented the famous “clear and present danger” test to determine when a state could constitutionally limit an individual’s free speech rights under the First Amendment. The paraphrase “yelling fire in movie theatre” was a result of the unanimous opinion written by Justice Oliver Holmes.
Fun Fact of the Day
Students have the right to pray in America’s public schools, as long as there’s no disruption to school operations and no government employees (teachers, coaches) are involved.
Government, private companies, and Free Speech.
The First Amendment and Hate Speech: Do we lag behind the rest of the world?
Tanya Cohen, from the website ThoughtCatalog, wrote a piece regarding the First Amendment and hate speech. She made a number of comparisons to the First Amendment, and how other countries around the world handle what she describes as “hate speech”.
From the article:
In the United States, hate speech is often spewed forth by people with a great deal of influence, thus making it even more dangerous. Freedom of speech always comes with responsibility, and people in powerful positions need to have extra responsibilities. Consider the case of Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson. In a civilized country with basic human rights, Phil Robertson would have been taken before a government Human Rights Tribunal or Human Rights Commission and given a fine or prison sentence for the hateful and bigoted comments that he made about LGBT people. In the US, however, he was given no legal punishment, even though his comments easily had the potential to incite acts of violence against LGBT people, who already face widespread violence in the deeply homophobic American society – and his comments probably DID incite acts of violence against LGBT people.
View from the Mountains – 11 Mar 2015
Some more items of interest in the news..
Sonoran Conservative 