“The First Amendment offers sweeping protection that allows all manner of speech to enter the marketplace of ideas. This protection applies to loathsome and unpopular speech with the same force as it does to speech that is celebrated and widely accepted. The protection would be unnecessary if it only served to safeguard the majority views. In fact, it is the minority view, including expressive behavior that is deemed distasteful and highly offensive to the vast majority of people, that most often needs protection under the First Amendment.”

The full panel of judges on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Constitution doesn’t allow police officers to eject Christians from a public area just because Muslims are threatening violence.

The decision came in the long-running “heckler’s veto” case that erupted at the International Arab Festival in Dearborn, Michigan, in 2012, when Christian evangelists were violently attacked by a hostile Muslim mob.

Lower courts ruled the officers were allowed to order the Christians to leave, under threat of arrest, because of the threat of violence from the Muslims.

However, the full appeals court the police action in violation of the Constitution.

“We find that defendants violated the Bible Believers’ First Amendment rights because there can be no legitimate dispute based on this record that the [county and officers] effectuated a heckler’s veto by cutting off the Bible Believers’ protected speech in response to a hostile crowd’s reaction,” the court opinion said.

“The First Amendment offers sweeping protection that allows all manner of speech to enter the marketplace of ideas. This protection applies to loathsome and unpopular speech with the same force as it does to speech that is celebrated and widely accepted. The protection would be unnecessary if it only served to safeguard the majority views. In fact, it is the minority view, including expressive behavior that is deemed distasteful and highly offensive to the vast majority of people, that most often needs protection under the First Amendment.”

The case was brought by Bible Believers, Ruben Israel, Arthur Fisher and Joshua DeLosSantos against Wayne County, Michigan, Sheriff Benny Napoleon and deputies Dennis Richardson and Mike Jaafar.

It cited the plaintiffs’ messages on signs and T-shirts that included “Islam Is A Religion of Blood and Murder,” “Turn or Burn,” “Fear God,” “Jesus Is the Way, the Truth and the Life. All Others are Thieves and Robbers” and “Prepare to Meet Thy God – Amos 4:12.”

The Christians also began their walk carrying a pole with a pig’s head attached to the top, further angering the Muslim crowd.

The opinion noted that two types of speech are unprotected, incitement to riot and fighting words.

The judges found any advocacy for the use of force or lawless behavior is “absent from the record in this case.” And the judges found regarding fighting words, “the average individual attending the festival did not react with violence, and of the group made up of mostly adolescents, only a certain percentage engaged in bottle throwing.”

The opinion cited the “heckler’s veto” concept of one person or group silencing others by threatening violence.

“It is a fundamental precept of the First Amendment that the government cannot favor the rights of one private speaker over those of another. Accordingly, content-based restrictions on constitutionally protected speech are anathema to the First Amendment and are deemed ‘presumptively invalid,’” the ruling said.

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