U.S. Can Learn Something About First Amendment from Brazil

[drakonyx]

Billboards in Brazil show no mercy in their attacks on organized religion. One even shows a picture of a jet crashing into the World Trade Center with a caption that reads: "If God exists, then everything is permissible." We live in a country that is supposed to be the beacon of free speech and free expression. Yet a far tamer Fresno billboard put up by atheists was defaced earlier this year. What does this say about us?

http://www.theprovocation.net/2011/08/us-can-learn-something-about-freedom.html

[ashling]

1. What does this have to do with the first amendment?

Was the city of Fresno complicit in this defacement? The protections in the Billof Rights protect against government action.

[drakonyx]

2. City not complicit

The City of Fresno wasn't complicit in any overt way. However, the culture here is very conservative - we're considered the "Bible Belt of the West Coast." In that sense, I believe the culture of the area encourages such actions, though no overt municipal action was undertaken. City officials here can't be elected if they're not Christians. It's just not politically feasible.

[ashling]

5. That's all fine, but...

It's a matter of Constitutional law were talking here, not manners or culture. Hell I've lived in the buckle of the bible belt (southern) most of my life - I KNOW all about not getting elected unless their Christian, but it still is not a matter of the 1st Amendment.

By the way, I teach government and I have to explain this to college students all the time along with the fact that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are 2 seperate documents

I have even had students rant about the Constitution being divinley inspired

[MADem]

3. It says that the cops in Fresno have a few vandals they need to catch.

It doesn't say jack about "the First Amendment."

And Brazil, last I checked, wasn't the 51st state, so our First Amendment is just reading material down that way.

And speaking of Brazil, they've got the SECOND LARGEST statue of JC in the world, looking benevolently over Rio. It's MASSIVE. So....whatever...

[The Northerner]

4. +1

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. It says that the cops need to catch some vandals

[GillesDeleuze]

7. City Censors FFRF's Billboard with Heckler's Veto

http://www.ffrf.org/publications/freethought-today/articles/hecklers-veto-ffrf-lawsuit-alleges-city-censorship/


The Foundation documents reveal that the city phoned the billboard company to report a number of complaints it said it had received against the billboard. The city admitted that employee Donna Vega was directed to contact the billboard company to complain specifically because she was in charge of negotiating a lucrative deal for the billboard company. Vega explicitly referred to the pending business project in an e-mail of complaint over FFRF’s billboard to General Outdoor Advertising.