May 2, 2022, 11:01am
A Christian flag can fly in front of Boston's city hall despite the government's protestations, as the Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday that the city violated the First Amendment rights of a local Christian group.
The Supreme Court is in Washington, DC.
Boston has a flag-flying program that allows private organizations and companies to fly a flag in front of its city hall for a few hours, but the city denied a request from the organization Camp Constitution to fly a Christian flag in 2017, saying it would be interpreted as the government endorsing religion.
The city was violating the group's right to free speech by denying Camp Constitution director Harold Shurtleff's request to fly the flag.
The city had never rejected a request for the flag program before and did not have a policy on flag raisings.
Boston's attorneys argued that every other flag accepted did match the city's views, but they argued that it was more difficult to discern a connection to the city.
The most important point in Shurtleff's favor was that Boston hadn't rejected any other proposals.
The city of Boston has not responded to the request for comment.
Boston admits that it denied Shurtleff's request solely because he asked to raise a Christian flag.
The Supreme Court ruled that the flag flying in Boston was government speech. The opinion comes as the 6-3 conservative court has recently been willing to rule in favor of greater religious liberty, such as a ruling last term that allowed Catholic adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex foster parents and a decision this term allowing a death row inmate to receive prayer.
The flag case was one of the major religious liberty cases heard by the Supreme Court. The justices are still considering two cases, one involving a high school football coach who was placed on administrative leave for praying on the field, and the other about whether Maine can prohibit students in a tuition-aid program from using state funds to pay for religious schools.
The justices debated speech and religion over the flag-flying at Boston city hall.
The Supreme Court could side with the football coach who was fined for praying.
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