Liberty Counsel will present oral argument (Wednesday) in a federal court of appeals against the city of Boston and one of its officials for censoring the Christian flag that Boston resident Hal Shurtleff and his Christian civic organization, Camp Constitution, requested to fly on the city’s public forum.
The city censored the religious viewpoint of the flag in a public forum. The flag would have been raised only during the one-hour event held by Camp Constitution.
The city regularly extends to other civic and cultural organizations the freedom to raise their flags on a flagpole to commemorate whatever events are important to the organizations. The city’s application policy refers to the flagpoles as “public forums.”
However, when Camp Constitution asked the city in 2017, and again in 2018, for a permit to raise the Christian flag on Boston City Hall flagpoles to commemorate Constitution Day (September 17) and the civic and cultural contributions of the Christian community to the city of Boston, the Commonwealth, religious tolerance, the Rule of Law, and the U.S. Constitution, city officials denied the permit because the flag was religious.
(Wednesday), Mat Staver will present the oral argument at the court of appeals in Boston.
“The city’s blatant discrimination against Camp Constitution’s Christian viewpoint is an unconstitutional censorship and insult to the First Amendment,” said Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver. “Boston’s rich heritage has a focal point of liberty and free speech at America’s founding. The city cannot close its public forums to religious viewpoints. It is tragic that a Boston official censored the flag at the event to celebrate the Constitution,” said Staver.
