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Saturday, March 19, 2011

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.

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