1st Amendment Protections Prevent 1st Amendment Abuses by the Authorities. Sounds pretty simple, pretty straight forward. It reads, in full, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The “abridging of the freedom of speech” is the focus of a court case in St. Louis where U.S. District Court Henry Edward Autrey recently ruled that a building size mural reading, End Eminent Domain Abuse, must come down.
The Institute for Justice, which brought the case on behalf of Jim Roos, the author of the 360 Square foot mural, plans to appeal. According to a report on STLToday.com, Michael Bindas, the attorney from the Institute for Justice, stated, “The Supreme Court has made clear that political speech like Jim’s gets the utmost constitutional protection precisely because it is the stuff of public debate.”
Notwithstanding your opinion on eminent domain practices, it would seem that Mr. Bindas has a point. Speech complaining about governmental policies is the very speech that the government is charged with protecting. Seems important enough that our framers made it first on their list of things to protect.
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