The City of Boston has been ordered to pay $2.1 million to a Christian group when a court said the city illegally denied them the ability to fly their Christian flag over City Hall despite that officials allowed other groups to fly their flags.
The City of Boston had a practice of allowing community groups to fly their peculiar flags over city hall as a way of giving the groups a chance to rally their followers and advertising their services or ideals.
Boston had allowed every group that applied to take advantage of this flag-flying opportunity. They allowed communists, race-based groups, and even religious groups including Muslims to fly their flags. But the city refused only one group. A Christian group.
Now, Daily Wire reports that the city has lost a court case to maintain its ban solely on Christians, and now has to pay up.
The settlement included an agreement to pay Harold Shurtleff and his Camp Constitution non-profit for legal costs incurred during the dispute.
“We are pleased that after five years of litigation and a unanimous victory at the U.S. Supreme Court, we joined with Hal Shurtleff to finally let freedom fly in Boston, the Cradle of Liberty,” Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver, whose organization represented Shurtleff, said in a statement.
“The Christian flag case has established significant precedent, including the overturning of the 1971 ‘Lemon Test,’ which Justice [Antonin] Scalia once described as a ‘ghoul in a late night horror movie.’ The case of Shurtleff v. City of Boston finally buried this ghoul that haunted the First Amendment for 51 years,” he added.
The city’s policy stated that the flagpole was open to all organizations. Between 2005-2017, the city approved 284 flag raisings with no denials. However, in 2017, Shurtleff’s group was denied its request to fly the flag on Constitution Day and Citizenship Day because it was a Christian flag.
“The case was lost in four lower court cases before the Supreme Court accepted it. Justices ruled 9-0 in May that the denial was unconstitutional under the First Amendment Speech Clause,” the Daily Wire added.
Boston officials finally allowed the Christian flag to fly over city hall. But the court ordered more.
Naturally, Boston is run by Democrats and Democrats hate Christians above all others and will use the trappings of power to oppress Christians even as they allow all others their freedom.
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