Mid-Term Exam

Here is something about the First Amendment from at article in the Catholic New Agency web site. 

All of you junior Constitutional Law scholars get out you pencils, read the article and answer the question, in essay form, in 1500 well chosen words:  The Supreme Court has found the following to be protected free speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution: Nude Dancing, Pornographic movies, DVDs and videotapes, foul and profane Rap Music and the picketing activities of members of the Westboro Baptist Church among sundry other affronts and assaults to human dignity and worth.  In other words, when it comes to speech almost anything goes.  In New York City an ordinance was just passed by the City Council and signed into law by Hizzoner Bloomberg.  The ordinance requires pregnancy centers, offering other things than abortion, e.g. counseling, care and support for women who are pregnant, so to inform their clients that they do not offer abortion.  This is similar to a law which was recently declared unconstitutional in Maryland.

For the purposes of this course, assume you are a Constitutional attorney and describe how not informing a client of one of these agencies that you do not perform abortions is protected speech under the First Amendment and similar to those examples of speech given above, i.e. Nude dancing, Pornography films, Rap Music and  publicly desecrating the funeral rights of dead servicemen.

Do not use photographs, or quote lyrics.  You have one hour.

An Interesting Juxtaposition of Symbols and Signs

It was white, and white and big, and white and big and slow.  It moved with a kind of glacial grace, like an ocean liner leaving port, outbound for the tropics, or Europe in the "Grand Old Days".  It moved and everything slowed behind it, the little things, none of them white, none of them sparkling in the late afternoon sun that bounced off its shiny skin dazzling highlights here and there, all of them jockeying in its wake to swing out and pass.  It was one of those suburban tanks progressing right down the middle of the highway, filling its lane like a boulder in mid-stream; an Escalade, a Navigator, a Mercedes-Benz GL Class thing.  One of those monsters that occupy the heated garage some yards across the brick paved "tarmac" from the main house, or one of the three ports in a McMansion's garage; the other two being reserved for the riding mower and Dad's nifty zippy thing with space for the clubs, or the skis or the tennis bag.

I caught up with it as it took the exit I was aiming for, its huge black tires reminding me for no particular reason that I could discern of mill wheels grinding to a stop.  The light at the bottom of the exit ramp changed and it nosed out to cross the road and turn left, still heading in my general direction.  I followed, amusing myself that I was following at a respectful distance.  As I closed on it, I noticed there were three bumper stickers on the rear of the thing.  One. low and in the center was blue, the color of the democrats, I think, and it read: "I VOTED FOR THE KIDS!"  Close to that one was another one, also blue.  Its one word was "OBAMA."

Another traffic light separated us briefly before I could catch up with it just as we were making the same right turn onto another road leading to a large mall.  As we turned I was able to read the last sticker which had been placed just above the latch on the rear door.  As near as I can remember this was it: "WHEN THE POWER OF LOVE OVERCOMES THE LOVE OF POWER THEN THE WORLD WILL KNOW PEACE."

Now my curiosity was aroused, and as I neared my own destination I took advantage of a little break in the traffic to move to my left and speed up just a little to pass this thing in its stately parade along the avenue.  I wanted to view the driver.  I amused myself again thinking about the neck craners who want to get a glimpse of passing royalty.

My wife, alongside me in the passenger seat continued to read aloud the book we have been reading together, "An Infinity of Little Hours".  It is a book chronicling the journey of five men into the Carthusian order of hermit monks at a charter house in England in the 1960's.  She had reached the part where two of them were about to take simple vows binding themselves to stay for three years in a place right out of the Eleventh Century, devoting themselves to lives of prayer and fasting, single mindedly seeking God.  As I drew near to the front of the vehicle Mariellen read about the two postulants, Dom Philip and Dom Malachi, beginning a week long retreat of intense examination and preparation for the ceremony where they would make their promises to the community and to God, to "have nothing and nobody but God, and Him alone, in whom to find the motive to go on living and the strength to do so."

These words I heard as I looked past her, and up to see the driver of the big white car, the big white car with the three blue signs.  There she was, like royalty in state, a woman of a certain age, not young, not old I thought, but well taken care of; as who would not expect surrounded by a vehicle that would have cost most of what I earn in a year.  She drove, no it appeared that she processed carefully down the center lane again, sailing by me as I moved to turn left into the mall.  As she disappeared over a small rise I saw three smalle blue stickers on the great white.

Mariellen read the part about the ceremony taking place on the Feast of St. John the Baptist, the miracle child, who became a hermit with nobody but God and Him alone.

The last thought I had about it all before we walked inside to go to work was that blue and white are the traditional colors of Mary, the Virgin Mother of God.