BAKER BAKER NOTABLE

This is the USSC case that will reverse restrictions on our point of view

"Court Strikes Down Curb on Visits by Jehovah's Witnesses"

"People have the right to go door to door to advocate for religious, political or other noncommercial causes without first getting the government's permission, the Supreme Court ruled today in a lopsided constitutional victory for the ministry of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

The 8-to-1 decision struck down a Stratton, Ohio, ordinance that made it a crime for any canvasser or solicitor to pay an uninvited visit on any of the 278 residents for the purpose of promoting or explaining any cause without providing identification and obtaining a permit from the mayor's office. The village interpreted canvassers to include Jehovah's Witnesses, with whom the mayor, John M. Abdalla, had long had a tense relationship, and cause to include their door-to-door ministry.

While drawing on a series of Supreme Court precedents that found constitutional protection for the nonconformist views of the Jehovah's Witnesses – who refuse to salute the American flag, for example – the decision today was not limited to religious expression. In his majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens noted that the ordinance appeared to apply to neighbors ringing one another's doorbells to solicit support for political candidates or improved public services.

It is offensive, not only to the values protected by the First Amendment, but to the very notion of a free society, Justice Stevens said, that in the context of everyday public discourse a citizen must first inform the government of her desire to speak to her neighbors and then obtain a permit to do so.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was the lone dissenter. He cited a series of recent crimes, including the murder of a Dartmouth University faculty couple by two teenagers who gained entry to the couple's home by claiming to be conducting a survey, in arguing that the Stratton ordinance was a valid approach to crime control."

sauce: no picture..

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/18/us/court-strikes-down-curb-on-visits-by-jehovah-s-witnesses.html