Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Religious Advertisements and the 1rst Amendment

A relative sized Arizona town had placed limits on the sizes of church signs that were being put up. It brought about mild but short controversy whether or not this violated the 1st amendment. The case is titled reed vs. town of Gilbert. It concerned an ordinance that had "restrictions on political, ideological, and directional signs".
It then went to the Supreme Court. In all, the supreme court justices decided favorably in a 9-0 vote that it was in direct violation of the constitution and the first amendment but they disagreed in the fact that six of the justices argued that they agreed upon the bottom line but not the rationale of the decision, which is an extremely counterintuitive thought.


Essentially, the argument is about the freedom of speech for the right to choose a religion. Normal signs, in the town, were acceptable all the way up to 32 square feet. However, when dealing with any sign that were church related, the sign was unable to surpass 6 square feet. As a result, it is obvious that the first amendment does not tolerate this unequal sort of treatment. However, what is still being discussed is the amount of signs on one road pertaining to the same topic for advertisement purposes but also if they pass content-based laws which arises another whole level of issues/topics.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/us/major-supreme-court-cases-in-2015.html?_r=0

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