MISSOURI
Religion News Service
Brian Pellot | Mar 10, 2015
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.
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