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Burning Crosses
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
In an attempt to get away from the incessant US/Iraq threads I thought I'd pick up on this story, which was reported on the Today Programme this morning.
Apparently the Klu Klux Klan is going before the US Supreme Court today to fight for their right to burn crosses. They claim that cross burning is protected by their First Amendment Right.
Apparently there are a few Klansmen in prison in Virginia as a result of their actions.
So, are the Klan right, can cross burning be considered "free speech" in the same way that flag burning is?
Apparently the Klu Klux Klan is going before the US Supreme Court today to fight for their right to burn crosses. They claim that cross burning is protected by their First Amendment Right.
Apparently there are a few Klansmen in prison in Virginia as a result of their actions.
So, are the Klan right, can cross burning be considered "free speech" in the same way that flag burning is?
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Comments
What exactly is meant to be symbolic of?
Scum like the KKK are the biggest enemies of freedom, democracy and tolerance, so I find it extremely rich that they advocate their 'freedom of speech' to continue spreading their hate-filled nonsense. Those who don't participate in democracy should not be allowed to take advantage of it.
Like any organisation it gets used for the promotion of extreme causes or particularly media grabbing issues which tend to detract from its intended aims of consistent and comprehensive social change.
As for the burning crosses issue..Do we have any more details? Them burning crosses at their own private rallies is fine with me, well as fine as anything like that can be. But burning crosses on the lawn of the local black church obviously isnt.
Just thought you'd like to know, that for example in Denmark burning of the Danish flag, is by all means illegal. Some even say that if you get "caught" having the flag on the floor, you'll get a notice.
Funny but I don't see it that way. Yes, I'm not blind to the consequences but freedom of speech is precisely that. Especially as a church is a public arena. It's not different to burning a flag at a veterans rally...
I'm not saying that I don't find their action abhorrent, just that they are protected under the First Amendment - at least as I understand it...
@ Aladdin - for NAACP see the Commission for Racial Equality. People paid to identify racism, ergo no racism = no job.
Would you feel the same way if it were a school? Or a hospital?
Although, when Nazi's wanted to march through a Jewish neighborhood of Nazi survivors, they were allowed to march but elsewhere because the Nazi symbols were a form of intimidation.
By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — As she looked across the pasture from her home in southwestern Virginia, Rebecca Sechrist could see a burning cross and hear the rants of men in hoods.
The Ku Klux Klansmen spoke "real bad about the blacks and the Mexicans" and were so intimidating that Sechrist, who is white, said she feared for her own family.
Her testimony about the 1998 incident led to the conviction of a Pennsylvania Klan leader, imperial wizard Barry Black, under a state law that bans cross-burning, a ritual of the racist organization that recalls an era of bigotry.
On Wednesday, in a key test of free speech, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether Black's 1999 conviction and $2,500 fine should stick. Black argues that Virginia cannot single out cross-burning without violating the First Amendment. Virginia officials counter that they are rightly targeting one of the most potent forms of intimidation.
A ruling will resolve conflicting lower court rulings over whether states may specifically ban cross-burning or must rely on general laws that prohibit the destruction of property, trespassing or intimidation. Although images of cross-burnings evoke another time, numerous states this year reported such incidents.
The Virginia dispute stems from two 1998 occurrences: the KKK rally in Carroll County, Va., that Sechrist saw, and a separate cross-burning at the home of a black family in Virginia Beach. Richard Elliott and Jonathan O'Mara were convicted after burning a makeshift cross in the yard of Elliott's neighbor. The neighbor, James Jubilee, had complained to Elliott's mother about Elliott shooting guns in the Elliott family's backyard.
For the U.S. justices, the consolidated cases reprise a dispute from 10 years ago, when the high court struck down a St. Paul ordinance that banned cross-burning intended to arouse anger in people based on "race, color, creed, religion or gender." The court said the St. Paul law wrongly targeted people's views. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said that "St. Paul has sufficient means at its disposal to prevent such behavior without adding the First Amendment to the fire."
The Virginia statute, which originally was passed in 1952, tries to avoid First Amendment problems by outlawing all cross-burning done "with the intent of intimidating" anyone.
But Virginia's Supreme Court last year ruled the law unconstitutional. The court said that "under our system of government, people have the right to use symbols to communicate. They may patriotically wave the flag or burn it in protest; they may reverently worship the cross or burn it as an expression of bigotry." Other state courts that have upheld cross-burning laws say such threats and "fighting words" are not protected by the First Amendment.
"I think this case will settle it once and for all," said University of Richmond law professor Rodney Smolla, representing the law's challengers.
Smolla said Virginia's law discriminates against particular views. He said the state cannot claim its law is "neutral" toward the content of a person's message simply because the prohibition is linked to the intimidating nature of cross-burning.
"If the government is permitted to select one symbol for banishment from public discourse there are few limiting principles to prevent it from selecting others," Smolla told the justices in his brief.
In an interview, Smolla said he found Sechrist's testimony poignant. But he said what she heard from the rally did not rise to the level of a "real threat, a communication that genuinely makes people fear they may be the target of violence."
Virginia officials counter that they are not trying to regulate points of view, but rather actions that lead people to fear for their lives. Fifteen states and the U.S. Department of Justice are backing Virginia.
"Since it is constitutionally permissible to ban all forms of intimidation, it is constitutional to ban its most virulent forms," the state says in a brief by Virginia Solicitor William Hurd. Virginia contends there is no "official suppression of ideas" because the law applies to anyone who burns a cross to intimidate someone.
Asked about prosecuting cross burners under other laws, Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said cross-burning is such an egregious act that it demands its own crime.
"To burn a cross in front of other people is a clear, universal symbol that there is violence coming," he said. "People have the right to be free from fear."
There are two cases in front of the Supremem Court. One where a man was convicted of burning a cross at a Klan rally on private property and one where a few guys burned a cross on the lawn of a black family's home.
THe first one, abhorrent as it is, I think is a right that can't be taken away. What you do as speech on your own property is your own business. Unless of course, your property happens to overlook something like an NAACP building or something, where reasonable judgement would lead one to believe that perhaps intimidation was the real aim.
The second case, well, I think those guys should rot in jail. THere is no sentence long enough for that kind of scum. The claim that it was an "expression of free speech " is ludicrous. I think the aim of the burning should be considered. IN this case it was to intimidate this black family, who incidentally, moved out of their home after this occurred.
I hope that these guys are being "intimidated" in prision.
Virginia case produces sparks at Supreme Court
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 — A case that questions whether cross burning is illegal intimidation or constitutionally protected free speech produced sharp debate among Supreme Court justices Wednesday, with most appearing very troubled by the symbol’s link to racial violence.
‘This was a reign of terror, and the cross was a sign of that. It is unlike any symbol in our society. It was intended to cause fear, terrorize.’
— JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS
JUSTICES ARE CONSIDERING how far states can go to discourage the Ku Klux Klan and others from burning crosses. At issue is an anti-cross-burning law that Virginia passed 50 years ago in reaction to Klan intimidation of blacks.
Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s only black member, who rarely speaks in arguments, said crosses were part of “100 years of lynching in the South.”
“This was a reign of terror, and the cross was a sign of that,” said Thomas, who was raised in segregated Georgia. “It is unlike any symbol in our society. It was intended to cause fear, terrorize.”
The justices interrupted one another during the lively argument, comparing crosses to semiautomatic weapons and discussing the history of cross burning.
“The cross has acquired a potency that is at least equal to that of a gun,” Justice David Souter said.
The justices historically have been protective of the free-speech rights of the most controversial of groups, including flag-burners, adult entertainers and people who display swastikas.
In the cross-burning case, they are debating now whether three white men were wrongly prosecuted, in separate cases, for lighting crosses during a Klan rally and in the yard of a black family.
The Virginia Supreme Court overturned the men’s convictions, ruling that the burnings were symbolic speech.
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The state court relied on a Supreme Court decision a decade ago in another cross-burning case. The court struck down a city hate crimes ordinance in St. Paul, Minn., that criminalized cross burning aimed at frightening or angering others “on the basis of race, color, creed or gender.” Virginia’s law prohibits the activity when it is conducted to intimidate a person or group.
Several justices, however, questioned whether people in Virginia can be punished for burning crosses if there is no clear intention to intimidate.
More than a dozen states have cross-burning laws. A ruling against Virginia could block many of them.
FAMILY FLED NEIGHBORHOOD
The arguments come four years after two white neighbors in Virginia Beach, Va., tried to burn a 4-foot cross in the yard of James Jubilee, who is black. Jubilee moved his family out of the neighborhood.
In the other case, a Pennsylvania man was convicted of burning a 30-foot cross on private land in rural southern Virginia during a 1998 rally.
Virginia state Solicitor William Hurd said that the Klan rally was held after whites became angry about mixed-race couples and that they talked at the rally about killing blacks. He pointed at the large courtroom columns to compare the size of the cross that was set on fire.
Justice John Paul Stevens asked whether the state was prosecuting cross burnings only because they were obnoxious speech. Hurd said that such speech was allowed but that threatening speech should be barred.
The Bush administration, siding with Virginia, argued in court filings that cross burning “has a particularly strong association with acts of vigilantism and violence.”
Virginia has passed a new version of the law to get around free-speech concerns. The new law makes it a crime to burn anything, including a cross, as a threatening symbol.
Yep, if we had a freedom of speech law then no public place should be off limits. That's the whole point of it, that you cannot stop people from expressing an opinion, no matter how distateful.
But them I'm looking at this from a US Constitution perspective, and based on many of the things they had previously ruled were acceptable.
That said, if the US has applicable "Intimidation" laws then I can see how the convictions should stand...
BTW Good point about difference between public area and public property
I don’t see flag burnings in the same light as cross burnings mainly because flag burnings and cross burnings have two different meanings. While a flag burning usually just signifies that someone is unhappy with their government, a cross burning has come to signify danger.
A cross burning is a threat.
Burning a cross on the property of an ethnic minority, non-protestant, or “sexual deviant” is parallel to placing a threat of their lives upon their doorstep or screaming that whoever is in that home is in imminent danger.
The law should treat it that way.
Besides, if it were generally conceded the placing a burning cross in someone's yard is tantamount to a death threat, wouldn't the occupant of the house be within his/her rights to open up with his/her (2nd Amendment protected-) firearm and blow the living daylights out of the Klanners?
Justice Thomas now needs to recuse himself from siting on the discussions on the subject because he has publicly stated his position against such activities and shown that he has a 'victim' status in the matter...automatically disqualifying him from any impartial considerations.
:eek:
Anyway. I'm very left wing and thus I'm not really in to the KKK.... In the least. Though at the same time I do believe that they have the right to hold their beliefs, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. It's obvious that buring crosses is a white supremacy symbol and it's obviously going to offend people, not to mention starting fights. I'm not for it...
I wonder if you would have been quite a defender of freedom of speech had a Muslim family living in the US been seen crashing remote-controlled airplanes into a model of the Twin Towers and laughing at the death of thousands, instead of a bunch of white racist scumbags burning crosses.
:rolleyes:
what i or someone else does in the privacy of their own home or on their own land is no one's business execpt mine or theirs. unless it involves direct harm to another ie kidnapping or murder.
if i wanna torch a cross on my ranch or laugh about 9/11 in my own home its no one's business but mine.
but if you go off torching one on somelse's lawn or laughing about in my workplace now you have a problem. 1st off you have tresspassing and arson to deal with and as an employer you work for me at my discretion not yours. i worked for 2 ass bandits last year and while my opinion of homosexual's is VERY low (especially after working for those 2) i sure made sure i didn't tell any fag jokes in the work place.
actions have consequences and whilei have the freedom of speech i have to be prepared that if i do something in public someone really finds objectionable that something unpleasant might happen.
you can't walk down MLK and shout "nigger" and not expect to get killed. even though doing so is protected by the constitution.
and please, not all gay guys are the same. you saying that your opinion of us is low because you worked for 2 gay guys and they were assholes is equivalent to saying you worked for 2 guys who had blue eyes, and now you treat anyone looking of angel'ic descent [the island of angel is supposed to be where blue eyes originated....random trivia i think...;)] with suspicion. it's just crap! Just try to treat all equally, and find out who someone is before you judge them, not just based upon their sexuality!
as for homosexuals they are perverts
there are alot of perverts in the world. i care not to associate with any of them. some perverts are straight women. i had a girl as me if i liked rimming. i asked what that was. she told me. end of conversation with her. she's a perv. but by their very nature homosexual's are perverts. ever read gayhealth.com's q&a section? i seriously doubt you would find it objectionable but most people's stomach's are turned by it.
Don't worry, I'm sure homosexuals find straight sex utterly repulsive as well. The difference between them and you is that they don't call other people perverts because they indulge in activities they don't like. Which makes them much better human beings than the likes of you.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pervert
I've had a look at the definition of pervert. Nope, still can't see your point. Since what constitutes 'normal' is on the eyes of the beholder, I hope you will accept and understand it if a homosexual person calls you a pervert for indulging in such repulsive acts as sexual intercourse with a woman.
I really can't understand where you're coming from. Are you by any chance using that great book of fables, tales and other assorted nonsense known as the bible as a guide of what constitutes 'normal'?