The US 6th Circuit Court of Appeals bench has ruled that a bunch of Christian psychos, called the Bible Believers, were exercising their right to free speech when they targeted a 2012 Arab-American street festival in Dearborn, Detroit.
According to this report, the Bible Believers were evicted from the festival over their conduct. The evangelists were marching around with a pig’s head mounted on a pole while carrying anti-Muslim signs and making anti-Muslim statements.
Wayne County Sheriff’s deputies removed the hatemongers – who were pelted with rocks, eggs and water bottles – to restore the peace.
The Bible Believers sued, claiming the deputies failed to protect them and instead unlawfully kicked them out to silence their protected speech. The courts twice ruled in favour of the sheriff’s deputies, concluding they were justified in evicting the demonstrators on security grounds: they were trying to prevent further violence.
The lawsuit eventually wound up before the entire US 6th Circuit Court of Appeals bench, which reversed course and ruled in favour of the Bible Believers.
The justices wrote:
Diversity, in viewpoints and among cultures, is not always easy. An inability or a general unwillingness to understand new or different points of view may breed fear, distrust and even loathing,. But … the First Amendment demands that we tolerate the viewpoints of others with whom we may disagree.
Attorney Robert Muise of the American Freedom Law Center, who argued the case on behalf of the Bible Believers, applauded the decision.
If this went the other way, it would incentivise violence as a legitimate response to free speech, and that is wrong in our country.
The lawsuit was filed against Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon and two deputies, who had argued that they had a right to protect the public from violence on the night of the festival, noting the Bible Believers had caused problems in the past. According to court documents, the group attended the Dearborn festival the year before and things got ugly: Members spewed hate messages, fights broke out and the group was evicted.
When it returned the next year, the group requested extra protection, saying it was entitled to police protection from hostile audiences. But the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office offered no such protection, arguing the group wasn’t entitled to it and that law enforcement has the right to remove a speaker from an event “for his own protection” and to preserve the peace.