ADI NEWS SERVICES
The U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in a free speech case involving a Minnesota law that prohibits citizens from wearing shirts, hats, buttons, or other items sporting the logo of any organization with “recognizable political views.” As a result of this law, poll workers have repeatedly forced voters to remove or cover up hats, shirts, or buttons, and they have even forbidden voters from wearing shirts with the word “Liberty” and the classic Revolutionary War flag—the “Gadsden flag”—featuring a snake with the words “Don’t Tread on Me.”
In a friend of the court brief filed last week, the Goldwater Institute, which defeated two similar policies in Arizona in lawsuits filed almost a decade ago, is urging the court to find that the Minnesota ban violates the First Amendment. While the government should prevent disorder in polling places, it shouldn’t be in the business of telling people they can’t express themselves in respectful ways.
