The attorney general previously threatened to “go after” Americans who express “hate speech,”: Pam Bondi

Published by RawNews1st

Bondi’s comments came in the wake of the murder of Charlie Kirk, to which some have reacted by saying Kirk was not worthy of being mourned. As distasteful as Bondi and many others may find these comments, they are constitutionally protected. Even celebrations of Kirk’s murder could not be punished by the government.

The Supreme Court made that clear in a case that similarly dealt with disrespect of the dead.

On Monday, Attorney General Pamela Bondi warned that this administration “will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”

But that is simply not allowed under the First Amendment, at least as the Supreme Court has applied it for more than half a century. The nation’s chief law enforcement officer should know better. 

In Snyder v. Phelps (2011), the Supreme Court considered a lawsuit against the Westboro Baptist Church, a small sect that brought attention to itself by protesting at soldiers’ funerals with offensive signs, carrying messages like “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” The father of one such soldier sued the church, arguing that one such protest at his son’s funeral had brought him intense emotional distress.

But in an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court held that the protest was protected by the First Amendment and the father could not win damages from the church. In an understatement, the court acknowledged that the choice to picket at a soldier’s funeral “made the expression of [the church’s] views particularly hurtful to many.”

Nonetheless, as the Supreme Court explained, “Such speech cannot be restricted simply because it is upsetting or arouses contempt.” As the court had held in Texas v. Johnson (1989) — upholding the First Amendment right to burn an American flag — it is “a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment … that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” The court reaffirmed that “the point of all speech protection … is to shield just those choices of content that in someone’s eyes are misguided, or even hurtful.”