The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Wayne County Police in Michigan was in violation when they removed Christians who were chanting anti-Muslim sentiments at the International Arab Festival in 2012.
The incident happened in Dearborn, Michigan when members of the Bible Believers were removed under a case of "heckler's veto," to appease the crowd of Muslims and prevent violent altercation.
The Christian evangelists went to the festival carrying signs and messages including "Islam Is a Religion of Blood and Murder," "Jesus Is the Way, the Truth and the Life. All Others Are Thieves and Robbers" and "Prepare to Meet Thy God – Amos 4:12."
However, some members of the crowd responded "with threats of violence."
Lower courts ruled in favour of the police officers, but the appeals court disagreed.
"We find that defendants violated the Bible Believers' First Amendment rights because there can be no legitimate dispute based on this record that the [county and officers] effectuated a heckler's veto by cutting off the Bible Believers' protected speech in response to a hostile crowd's reaction," the court said, according to WND.
It added, "The First Amendment offers sweeping protection that allows all manner of speech to enter the marketplace of ideas. This protection applies to loathsome and unpopular speech with the same force as it does to speech that is celebrated and widely accepted."
"The protection would be unnecessary if it only served to safeguard the majority views. In fact, it is the minority view, including expressive behavior that is deemed distasteful and highly offensive to the vast majority of people, that most often needs protection under the First Amendment," the court added.
Bible Believers carried a pole with a pig's head that further angered the Muslim crowd.
The court found any advocacy for the use of force or lawless behavior is "absent from the record in this case."
It said "the average individual attending the festival did not react with violence, and of the group made up of mostly adolescents, only a certain percentage engaged in bottle throwing."
"It is a fundamental precept of the First Amendment that the government cannot favour the rights of one private speaker over those of another. Accordingly, content-based restrictions on constitutionally protected speech are anathema to the First Amendment and are deemed 'presumptively invalid,'" the ruling said.
The court said, "An especially 'egregious' form of content-based discrimination is that which is designed to exclude a particular point of view from the marketplace of ideas. ... Punishing, removing, or by other means silencing a speaker due to crowd hostility will seldom, if ever, constitute the least restrictive means available to serve a legitimate government purpose."
"A review of Supreme Court precedent firmly establishes that the First Amendment does not countenance a heckler's veto," the ruling said.
The court noted that a video showed that there was "no attempt made by the officers to protect the Bible Believers or prevent the lawless actions of the audience."
In its ruling, the appeals court said "The district court held that Defendants' actions in cutting off the Bible Believers' religious speech did not violate the Constitution. We reverse the judgment of the district court in full and remand this case for entry of summary judgment in favor of Plaintiffs, for the calculation of damages, and for the award of appropriate injunctive relief, consistent with this opinion."
