The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the city of Boston violated the free speech rights of a Christian group by refusing to fly a flag bearing the image of a cross at City Hall as part of a programme that let private groups use the flagpole while holding events in the plaza below.The 9-0 decision on Monday, authored (PDF) by liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, overturned a lower court’s ruling that the rejection of Camp Constitution and its director Harold Shurtleff did not violate their rights to freedom of speech under the US Constitution’s First Amendment. President Joe Biden’s administration backed Camp Constitution in the case.Boston’s flag-raising programme was aimed at promoting diversity and tolerance among the city’s different communities. In turning down Camp Constitution, Boston had said that raising the cross flag could appear to violate another part of the First Amendment that bars governmental endorsement of a particular religion.
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