freedom of speech

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A UK teen is being prosecuted for calling Scientology a cult.

A teenager is facing prosecution for using the word “cult” to describe the Church of Scientology.

The unnamed 15-year-old was served the summons by City of London police when he took part in a peaceful demonstration opposite the London headquarters of the controversial religion.

Officers confiscated a placard with the word “cult” on it from the youth, who is under 18, and a case file has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service.

As annoying as it is to be called a “cult,” why is prosecution necessary? The LDS Church has likely been called a cult a time or two in the UK. Has that ever been prosecuted? Hopefully, no.

A New Mexico photographer refused a job to photograph a same-sex ceremony. The New Mexico Human Rights Commission fined the photographer $6600.

Supreme Court agrees to take Utah religious speech case.  Sounds like this is the flipside of most Ten Commandments cases: where once the government allows a religious monument on public land, is it required to allow any and all petitions for monuments from other churches?

The dispute stems from Pleasant Grove City’s refusal to allow the display of a “Seven Aphorisms of Summum” monument in the same park that is the home for a Ten Commandments monument donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles 47 years ago.

At issue is whether a donated monument displayed by a municipality remains the private speech of the original donor, or is government speech; and whether placing donated monuments in a government-owned park creates a public forum or whether the government retains authority to select which monuments to display. . .

Summum, a Latin term meaning the sum total of all creation, was founded in 1975 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City. The Seven Aphorisms refer to a notion that when Moses received stone tablets on Mount Sinai inscribed with writings made by a divine being, he actually received two separate sets of tablets — the Seven Aphorisms and the Ten Commandments.

Kathleen Flake on Mormons and Free Speech

In short, among the Mormons, one is not free to promote disbelief in the church and remain a member of the church. Again, obviously, this has a chilling effect on free speech, but who says speech within religious communities is necessarily or even properly free? Freedom of speech is highly valued in democracies because they depend upon the free flow of information and ideas. But most churches are not democracies. And, no church that depends upon the free flow of right ideas — doctrine and theology — values the free of wrong ideas.