U.S. Court Rightly Nixes Missouri Ban on ‘profane, Rude, Indecent’ Speech outside Houses of Worship

By Brian Pellot
Religion News Service
March 10, 2015

http://brianpellot.religionnews.com/2015/03/10/missouri-profane-free-speech-worship-religious-freedom-first-amendment/

If America banned rudeness, most of New York would be behind bars.

The Midwest’s friendlier reputation doesn’t somehow give Missouri the right to ban rude or profane behavior outside houses of worship, a federal court rightly ruled on Monday.

The Washington Post’s Eugene Volokh breaks down the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Snap v. Joyce concerning Missouri’s somewhat sloppy House of Worship Protection Act, enacted in 2012.

The law criminalizes “intentionally and unreasonably” disturbing or disquieting houses of worship “by using profane discourse, rude or indecent behavior.” Nowhere in the Act are these vague and subjective adjectives defined.

Who determines what is profane, rude or indecent? The protester outside the church, mosque, temple or synagogue? The easily offended worshippers within? In any case, these restrictions are clearly based on the content of the expression, which raises a host of red flags when we’re talking about the First Amendment.

State governments can’t ban unpopular views just because some people might find them offensive or upsetting. Restricting profane, rude or indecent expression amounts to suppressing constitutionally protected freedom of expression.

In a timely note post-Charlie Hebdo, the court argues:

“…critical portrayals of Muhammad outside a mosque or of the Pope outside a Catholic Church might well be considered profane or indecent by their audiences…Any silent demonstration outside a house of worship would likely be able to create a disturbance only by the content of its message. Even expression that may be perceived as offensive, rude, or disruptive remains protected by the First Amendment.”

Society’s diverse sensibilities and sensitivities require us to either 1) tolerate views some may find offensive or 2) ban everything. For the sake of free speech, I’m backing option one. But you already knew that.