Justice Stephen Breyer told George Stephanopoulus on Sunday he didn't know if Koran burning was covered under the first ammendment. Never mind that flag burning was covered twice:
In both Texas v Johnson and US v Eichman, the court ruled that free speech trumped any offense and/or concerns about public safety raised by burning the American flag.
This is key. Breyer is afraid of the Religion of Peace and what they might do so he concludes burning a Koran is not covered under the first ammendment. However, I guess Justice Breyer is not familiar with the rulings of Johnson or Eichman which state:
The State’s position … amounts to a claim that an audience that takes serious offense at particular expression is necessarily likely to disturb the peace and that the expression may be prohibited on this basis. Our precedents do not countenance such a presumption. On the contrary, they recognize that a principal “function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or … even stirs people to anger.”
That just about covers it.
Under Breyers thinking would talk of a war in Pakistan be forboden? After all it may cause riots and killing in Pakistan or New York.
Is Breyer trying to put the Koran in its own category? Which, if so, would pretty much obliterate the other restriction in the first ammendment, the establishment clause regarding religion.
I don't believe Breyer could have been more wrong in this statement. But when you are delaing with the liberal mind there is no telling what they can justify to reach their ends.
I just wonder how many people we have to kill to make flag burning illegal?
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