Would a giant &quot;F*** BIDEN&quot; flag mounted on a truck be first amendment protected? I recently saw one of those trucks with flags mounted on them. The usual kind: big truck, 4'x6' flags, usually supporting Don't Tread On Me, Donald Trump, MIA, etc. Or the actual American flag. They are legal by the first amendment and don't cause safety problems for traffic. No problems. I recently saw a large flag on a giant truck, styled like a &quot;Trump 2020&quot; campaign poster, substituted with the words &quot;F*** BIDEN AND F*** YOU FOR VOTING FOR HIM!&quot;. The first word is probably almost a foot tall, obviously visible to everyone. I know people (or at least Americans) wear t-shirts like that everywhere, protected by freedom of speech. The Supreme Court has found vulgar bumper stickers to be also protected by the first amendment. However, bumper stickers and t-shirts are relatively small. This flag is nearly impossible to not see in traffic or in parking lots. Kids clearly see it. It virtually cannot be avoided. Could that particular flag be considered obscene and not protected by the first amendment? Because it is a large flag mounted high up, could it qualify as a billboard, such as mobile billboards attached to the side of trucks, which by law would not be able to display the most vulgar swear words? Could a city outlaw it? This happened in Idaho. UPDATE: I added &quot;in Idaho&quot; because I've seen the location question asked several times in questions. I don't mean anything special, positive, negative, different rules, etc. Sometimes an answer will involve quoting a state constitution or statutes. Don't read into &quot;This happened in Idaho&quot; too deeply. UPDATE 2: However, part (2) of the Miller test refers to as defined by state law. So I guess the question is in general and in this case the specific state of Idaho. Hope that clears it up.
The First Amendment controls in the US, so it does not matter if this is Idaho or Berkeley CA. This is clearly an expression of a political viewpoint, which is protected by the First Amendment. Any attempt to suppress a political viewpoint by appeal to &quot;obscenity&quot; or &quot;zoning&quot; or the like will ultimately fail in the courts. The word fuck is not lewd, filthy, or disgusting, and clearly does not constitute &quot;obscenity&quot;. There is a test, the &quot;Miller test&quot;, for obscenity, that requires all three of these conditions to be met: (1) whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards’ would find that the work, ‘taken as a whole,’ appeals to ‘prurient interest’ (2) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (3) whether the work, ‘taken as a whole,’ lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The word fuck is not obscene under this test, especially in this context.
In the united-states, those actions would be fully protected by the First Amendment. Andy has a constitutional right to speak freely about essentially whatever he wants -- including Mary's criminal conduct -- unless his speech falls into one of several narrowly defined categories, none of which would apply in this case. And because Mary has already put this information out on the Internet, it is likely not sufficiently private to support an invasion-of-privacy claim. However, the unfortunate reality is that complainants, police, prosecutors, and judges frequently ignore First Amendment protections. Indeed, many states have laws against &quot;cyberstalking&quot; and &quot;telecommunications harassment&quot; that are incredibly broad, and that clearly apply to conduct protected by the First Amendment. For instance, Ohio's telecommunications harassment statute makes it a crime to send an e-mail &quot;with purpose to abuse, threaten, or harass another person.&quot; This means that many people who engage in First Amendment-protected speech end up getting prosecuted anyway. If they pay for a good lawyer who knows how to properly raise a First Amendment defense, they may escape any penalties. But because most defendants do not have those resources, and because many lawyers are unaware of the First Amendment implications of such prosecutions, most defendants in such situations likely end up being convicted despite behaving perfectly legally. In the united-kingdom, though, the situation is very different. Even if Mary is breaking the law, and even if Andy limits himself to strictly factual information about what's he's learned about her conduct, he may still be held civilly liable. Mary may also be able to pursue Andy criminally for harassment if his e-mail causes her substantial emotional distress, and civilly for &quot;harassment by publication.&quot; The fact that this information is already public is likely not going to go very far in changing the analysis. Andy's best course of action is therefore to play it safe by keeping his mouth shut. Doing so has both legal and nonlegal benefits: He avoids exposure to the hassles of defending himself from criminal charges and he gets some time to examine the resentment, jealousy, paranoia that makes him want to humiliate his &quot;friend.&quot;
Damaging someone else's property is not protected free speech in the US. Nor is using someone else's property without permission and against the owner's wishes. Scenario 3 would surely be vandalism or &quot;Malicious Mischief&quot; or some similar offense, even if the paint can be fairly easily removed. The same would be petty surely true of scenario 2, as it would take at least some effort to remove the sticker, and it could be a safety hazard until it is removed (obstructed vision). Scenario 1 would probably not be even a minor crime, unless perhaps the person trespassed to attach the string. But the person has no right to insist that the car's owner not remove the sign. I am assuming that the car is owned by someone else, and the the person placing the sign, sticker or paint acted without permission from the owner or any authorized person.
Where the President explicitly tells a newspaper that they should reveal their sources. Is this not illegal in the US? It is not illegal. Well, it would be a U.S. Attorney, rather than the President himself. You're thinking of shield laws, but no such law exists at the federal level. Moreover, although some people might think that the First Amendment ("freedom of the press") would protect a journalist in such a case, the Supreme Court has held that it doesn't, though the government is required to "convincingly show a substantial relation between the information sought and a subject of overriding and compelling state interest". So if a reporter were subpoenaed in federal court to reveal a source, and they couldn't convince a court to quash the subpoena under the Branzburg test, they'd have to either reveal their source or be held in contempt. In practice, many reporters have chosen the latter, and served time in jail rather than reveal the source. For instance, Judith Miller. There've been a number of proposals to create such a federal law, but so far Congress hasn't seen fit to do it. According to the Wikipedia article, every state except Wyoming has some sort of shield protection for journalists, either in statute or case law, though the protections are not necessarily absolute. So a state court or prosecutor would find it much more difficult to enforce such an order.
I'm just going to talk about the US. The First Amendment to the US Constitution codifies that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;... What is clearly prohibited by this Amendment would be Congress (or any inferior legislature via the 14th Amendment) restricting the ability of religions which refuse to marry same-sex couples from marrying opposite-sex couples, or in general outlawing any kind of religious law about who a particular church is willing to marry (e.g. only marrying if both parties are of the religion). However, legislatures are generally allowed to influence action via government inducements (I'll just use inducements to describe subsidies, tax breaks, etc). The current precedent for determining whether a particular legislative action violates the Establishment Clause is the "Lemon Test," from Lemon v. Kurtzman, which has the following test: Government action violates the Establishment Clause unless it: Has a significant secular (i.e., non-religious) purpose, Does not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, and Does not foster excessive entanglement between government and religion. On the first point, I think the law fails - inducing religious establishments to perform same-sex marriage does not have a "significant secular purpose" because ultimately the government doesn't care whether or not you have a marriage ceremony, just that you sign a marriage certificate with an appropriate witness, which can be a government official. The law could survive on the second point if it could be shown to have at least the preponderance of being for social good, if it is argued that the law's purpose is to make church marriage ceremonies more accessible for same-sex couples by inducing more churches to perform them, and not to harm churches that don't perform them. However, this would probably be an uphill battle, since the law has the practical effect of promoting some religions' beliefs over others. The law probably fails on the third point as well, going back to the previous point that it effectively results in the government choosing one religious practice to promote over another. However, the Lemon Test often criticized or entirely disregarded by the current Supreme Court, for example in the case American Legion v American Humanist Association (a case decided by the current Supreme Court): This pattern is a testament to the Lemon test's shortcomings. As Establishment Clause cases involving a great array of laws and practices came to the Court, it became more and more apparent that the Lemon test could not resolve them. It could not "explain the Establishment Clause's tolerance, for example, of the prayers that open legislative meetings, . . . certain references to, and invocations of, the Deity in the public words of public officials; the public references to God on coins, decrees, and buildings; or the attention paid to the religious objectives of certain holidays, including Thanksgiving. Even without the Lemon Test, we can look at Walz v. Tax Commission of New York for an idea of when tax breaks for religious establishments is allowed (emphasis mine): The legislative purpose of the property tax exemption is neither the advancement nor the inhibition of religion... New York, in common with the other States, has determined that certain entities that exist in a harmonious relationship to the community at large, and that foster its "moral or mental improvement," should not be inhibited in their activities by property taxation or the hazard of loss of those properties for nonpayment of taxes. It has not singled out one particular church or religious group or even churches as such;... The State has an affirmative policy that considers these groups as beneficial and stabilizing influences in community life and finds this classification useful, desirable, and in the public interest. This paragraph seems to provide some argument both ways. First, the bolded section would seem to prohibit using government inducements to promote one religious practice over another, and that the government can only assist religious institutions when the assistance is applied equally. On the other hand, states are allowed to grant tax relief to religious organizations "that foster..."moral or mental improvement,"..." A legislature could argue that the law promotes "moral improvement" by encouraging acceptance of same-sex marriage, rather than a particular religious belief. However, I don't think that such an argument would prevail over the general prohibition on promoting any religious exercise over another. Government assistance for religious organizations is very thinly held to be permissible only when it is equal. In my opinion, the Supreme Court already has to use twisted gymnastics to argue in favor of any government assistance of religious organizations granted because of their religious status, so they are unlikely to allow something this far (especially since it is usually the conservative justices arguing in favor of these policies, and they are less likely to do same-sex marriage any favors). On the other hand, a permissible policy may be to have government grants for any organization that performs same-sex marriage ceremonies, whether or not that organization is religious. Whether or not that is allowed is likely going to depend on what proportion of the receiving organizations are religious in nature, but there may be enough hotels and other non-religious venues that would qualify that such a law might survive.
Usually these words refer to whether something (e.g. a law or government action) is or is not in accordance with the Constitution, including its amendments, as currently interpreted by US courts including the Supreme Court. So in view of Chaplinsky, the Constitution (as interpreted) does not protect "fighting words", and therefore a law that forbids "fighting words" is constitutional. As phoog points out in the comments, the word can also be used to refer to whether something is in accordance with the Constitution, as the speaker thinks it ought to be interpreted. So somebody might say that a certain law or action is (un)constitutional, even if a court has not considered it, if their own personal interpretation of the Constitution is (or isn't) consistent with it. Or, if a court has struck it down (or upheld it) but the speaker thinks they erred in doing so.
The NYT article implies that she has used social media in the past to get her victims to believe her fake back story. She is being released from detention, and the restriction on her using social media is not tied to her expressing a particular viewpoint. Courts have repeatedly held that the Government can justify incidental limitations on First Amendment freedoms if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest ( U.S. v. O'Brien, 391 US 367 - Supreme Court 1968). One such compelling interest is the effective administration of criminal justice (U.S. v. Spilotro, 786 F. 2d 808 - Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit 1986). For instance, speech restrictions can be tied to the purpose of preventing a defendant from committing further crimes while released.
The details depend on the state, of course. The common law thing you are looking for is a writ of mandamus -- a court order to a public official to do something (or not do something) that they are required to do under the law. Writs of mandamus were traditionally only applicable to ministerial tasks (i.e. things that are basically paper-shuffling where there is little to no discretion); marriage licenses are typically considered ministerial. With discretionary actions, things are much more complicated because the government official is supposed to have significant ability to decide what should and shouldn't be allowed; mandamus doesn't apply unless there's a right to the action requested. In some cases, mandamus has been replaced with other forms of judicial review, but in Alabama it is definitely still mandamus that's involved (source: mandamus is what's previously been used to stop issuance of licenses). For federal review, which is more likely to get somewhere, the approach to use is the exact same thing that led to DeBoer (the case bundled into Obergefell that was about granting licenses), and Perry, and many of the other gay marriage cases: a lawsuit seeking an injunction or declaratory relief under 42 USC 1983, which allows actions in law and equity whenever anyone denies civil rights to a US citizen (or someone in the jurisdiction of the US) under color of law. The ultimate result of this kind of suit is a federal court order to issue a marriage license, or a declaration that it's illegal to not issue the license (and so anyone who doesn't will be subject to a court order). Violating this order, like any court order, is contempt of court.