Court: Anti-Muslim slurs get legal protection

Marching around with a pig's head on a pole while telling Dearborn Muslims they would “burn in hell” may have been loathsome and intolerable — but the First Amendment still protects and allows such activity, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

In a case that tests the limits of free speech, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a group of Christian evangelists who were evicted from a 2012 Arab-American street festival over their conduct. The demonstrators were marching around with a pig’s head mounted on a pole while carrying anti-Muslim signs and making anti-Muslim statements.

Sheriff's deputies removed the demonstrators — who were pelted with rocks, eggs and water bottles — to restore the peace.

But that triggered a lawsuit by a California group called Bible Believers, which claimed that Wayne County sheriff’s deputies failed to protect them, and instead unlawfully kicked them out to silence their protected speech.

The lawsuit failed twice, once in federal court in Detroit, then again before a three-judge panel with the Sixth Circuit, which concluded the sheriff’s deputies were justified in evicting the demonstrators.

The suit then went before the entire Sixth Circuit bench, which reversed course and ruled in favor of the Christian evangelists, concluding their speech was protected,

“Diversity, in viewpoints and among cultures, is not always easy. An inability or a general unwillingness to understand new or different points of view may breed fear, distrust and even loathing,” the justices wrote. “But … the First Amendment demands that we tolerate the viewpoints of others with whom we may disagree.”

The Sixth Circuit stressed that the First Amendment “envelops all manner of speech, even when that speech is loathsome in its intolerance, designed to cause offense, and, as a result of such offense, arouses violent retaliation.”

Attorney Robert Muise of the American Freedom Law Center, who argued the case on behalf of the Bible Believers, applauded the decision, saying it was "solidly on the side of free speech."

"If this went the other way, it would incentivize violence as a legitimate response to free speech, and that is wrong in our country," Muise said. "Any freedom-loving American enjoys protections of the First Amendment."

The lawsuit was filed against Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon and two deputies, who had argued that they had a right to protect the public from violence on the night of the festival, noting the Bible Believers had caused problems in the past. According to court documents, Bible Believers attended the Dearborn festival the year before and things got ugly: The evangelicals spewed hate messages; fights broke out; the Bible Believers were evicted.

When they returned the next year, the Bible Believers requested extra protection, claiming they were entitled to police protection from hostile audiences.

In a letter to the group, the Wayne County Sheriff's office said it had no special relationship with the group, and reminded the Bible Believers that "under state law and local ordinances, individuals can be held criminally accountable for conduct which has the tendency to incite riotous behavior or otherwise disturb the peace."

Moreover, the county argued, law enforcement has the right to remove a speaker from an event "for his own protection" and to preserve the peace. According to court documents, it was "the county's view that its obligations to protect the Bible Believers' speechmaking had limitations."

Muise disagrees, saying the ruling debunks the so-called heckler's veto — where police silence a speaker to appease an angry crowd and stave off potential violence.

"(The ruling) affirms the rule of law that when a violent mob is responding violently to protected speech, the police’s duty is to protect the speaker and not join that mob that is intent in suppressing the speech," Muise said. "Today, the First Amendment was the victor."

The case now goes back to a federal judge in Detroit, who will decide what damages the Bible Believers are entitled to.