I GUESS HE DOESN’T REMEMBER THE SKOKIE MARCH CASE

Some Satanists are planning a gathering in Oklahoma City.  The Archbishop of Oklahoma City reportedly said: “Not all speech is protected if there is hate speech and it is intended to ridicule another religion.”

The Archbishop obviously doesn’t remember the case of National Socialist Party v. Skokie, the result of which was that the town of Skokie, Illinois, could not prohibit a march by the neo-Nazi National Socialist Party.  The Constitutional principle was already pretty clear by then, but that case made it unmistakably plain.  

If a neo-Nazi demonstration is protected under the Constitution, I don’t see how a Satanist gathering cannot be equally protected.  I don’t fault the Archbishop for speaking out against evil, but he’s just flat wrong on the law.  

Via the Volokh Conspiracy blog.