What Is It Going To Take… Our Deaths?

The Supreme Court just heard another landmark case that has deep ramification for our community. And the questions that they asked doesn’t bode well for us.

Non-discrimination laws do not infringe (At least for now.) on the First Amendment free speech rights because you had to prove one of two things either it resulted in violence or a threat was made. You can say anything or do anything as long a injury or threaten a person or place.

Speech that threatens others is not constitutionally protected. Does SCOTUS agree? | Opinion

Sacramento Bee

By Erwin Chemerinsky

April 30, 2023

There should be no First Amendment right to use speech to cause a reasonable person to fear for their safety. Based on oral arguments in the Supreme Court on April 19 in Counterman v. Colorado, however, it appears that the justices are likely to make it much harder to prove that speech is a threat. For over two years, Billy Raymond Counterman sent messages over Facebook to a singer, identified as “C.W.” Sometimes he sent several messages a day; sometimes there were long gaps between messages. 

Over six years, Counterman sent her over a million messages. C.W. said it was as if Counterman was “trying to continue a conversation with me . . . which I am not engaging in.” Some of Counterman’s messages expressed frustration that C.W. was not responding to him. Over time, his messages became more aggressive. C.W. said that she became concerned, “canceled a few shows,” and filed a complaint with police.

Counterman was prosecuted under a Colorado law that provides for criminal liability if speech “would cause a reasonable person to suffer serious emotional distress.” The Colorado Supreme Court had previously held that conviction requires proof only that the speaker “knowingly” made repeated communications, and does not “require that a perpetrator be aware that his or her acts would cause a reasonable person to suffer serious emotional distress.” Counterman was convicted and sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison. The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, and the 

Colorado Supreme Court denied review. This is the right result: Speech that threatens others is not constitutionally protected. The focus should be on whether a reasonable person felt threatened by the speech, not what the speaker had in mind.

This is kind of a grey area, he didn’t threaten her but his actions posed a threat. The article mentions another case.

Robert Watts, then 18, attended a rally and stated, “I have already received my draft classification as 1-A and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.” Watts was arrested and convicted for violating a federal law that makes it a crime to “knowingly and willfully” threaten the life of the president.

[…]

The court has reaffirmed that true threats are not protected by the First Amendment, but it has never articulated the standard for determining what constitutes a true threat under the First Amendment. Colorado and a number of other courts use an objective test: Would a reasonable person feel threatened under the circumstances? But a different test is used by many other courts, requiring proof that the defendant subjectively intended to threaten another person.

So depending upon how this ruling is framed it could be bad news for us.

The Supreme Court could narrowly define the case to this one incident and it could make it that “fighting words” are not enough. Stay tuned for the out of this case in June!

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While out in Ohio the Nazi were protesting drag queens.

Nazis protest at Land-Grant drag brunch: Here's what you need to know now

The Columbus Dispatch

By Max Filby

May 1, 2023

A group of neo-Nazi protesters showed up outside a drag brunch fundraiser in Columbus over the weekend, prompting a flurry of social media posts, outrage and pushback from local leaders.

The protesters, dressed in red, appear to have worn black ski masks to cover their faces, video and photos taken during the incident Saturday outside Land-Grant Brewing Co., which was hosting a drag brunch Saturday benefiting a local LGBTQ+ organization.

The few dozen protesters carried a black flag with a swastika — a symbol that harkens back to Nazi Germany in the 1940s — and a banner with the words "there will be blood." They chanted sayings including "no transgenders on our streets" and something with the phrase "under the Aryan sun," social media posts show.

The people in charge of the sound system for the drag party at Land-Grant reportedly turned up the music to drown out the protesters.

The cowards wore ski masks to cover their identity.

Most of the protestors [sic] donned black ski masks and sunglasses, preventing their faces from being shown.

They are afraid that there will be repercussions if they were known to be bigots and transphobes.

Members of the Blood Tribe appear to have showed up Saturday at the brewery at 424 W. Town St. to protest a drag brunch for people ages 21 and older.

They should change their name to the Wimp Tribe, if they want to protest something they should stand proud and tall and not hide behind ski masks.

Last month, another anti-drag protest drew attention in northeast Ohio. Armed white supremacists showed up outside a drag queen story hour in March in Wadsworth. One person wore a hoodie with the words "Proud Boys," a reference to a right-wing extremist group that is misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti-immigration, according to the ADL.

They are getting very dangerous, I am concern that violence will break out at one of these events.