Court ruling doesn’t limit speech

The staff editorial in yesterday’s Daily Free Press completely missed the point of the Supreme Court ruling on a Virginia law that banned cross burning (“Offensive speech must stay free,” April 8, pg. 6). In its ruling, the Supreme Court did not limit offensive language or expression, unlike what the editorial claimed. As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the author of the majority opinion, pointed out very clearly, the ban on cross burning was not because burning a cross is offensive. To burn a cross on a person’s yard (as was the situation in one of the relevant cases, Virginia v. Black) is widely accepted as a threat to the owner of the yard that they will likely be subjected to physical violence by the person or group that placed the burning cross in the owner’s yard.

The First Amendment was not undermined in Monday’s rulings. No one has the constitutional right to make direct, explicit or implied threats of violence against another person. Just as the First Amendment does not protect a person from making a believable death threat against another person (especially against the president or a public official), the First Amendment should not protect other, equally threatening forms of expression. Historically, a burning cross was meant to signal to black families and persons that they would soon be lynched or otherwise physically harmed. The same intent exists today when a burning cross is placed in an area where it is intended to intimidate a targeted population. Additionally, it is not necessary for intimidation to occur. It is only necessary that the part of the person who lights the cross of fire intends to intimidate another person with the threat of harm.

Finally, the Virginia law does not ban all cross burnings. Rather, it makes an exception for burning a cross when the action is not intended to intimidate. While it is difficult to qualify for the exception, the fact that the exception exists protects the rights of the Ku Klux Klan and other groups to express themselves in non-threatening ways.

For these reasons, it was erroneous for the staff editorial to compare burning a cross to the act of burning a flag. There is no direct or historical link between burning a flag and using the symbol of a flag burning to intimidate or harass a person with the threat of bodily harm. It was not the Supreme Court’s intention nor will it be the consequence of the ruling to limit offensive symbols in public places. The ruling only held that you cannot hide behind the First Amendment when intending to threaten a person with violence because the First Amendment does not protect such actions.