"By upholding a 51-year-old Virginia law that outlaws the burning of a cross on public or private property with the intent to intimidate, the court decreed that such an act amounted to a form of terror that could be regulated." (emphasis mine)
You've got to understand how cross-burning is used by racist groups. A typical cross-burning incident goes something like this:
A inter-racial couple sets up housekeeping and the local racists don't like the fact that "miscegenation" is going on in their town. So the bigots decide that they're "gonna show 'em who runs this town" and they plant a kerosene-soaked cross in the couple's front yard and set it alight.
If you're that couple, are you going to see such an incident as free expression or an act of terror?
The Virginia law makes it illegal to do this kind of thing and I'm glad that the court upheld it.
You've got to understand how cross-burning is used by racist groups. A typical cross-burning incident goes something like this:
A inter-racial couple sets up housekeeping and the local racists don't like the fact that "miscegenation" is going on in their town. So the bigots decide that they're "gonna show 'em who runs this town" and they plant a kerosene-soaked cross in the couple's front yard and set it alight.
If you're that couple, are you going to see such an incident as free expression or an act of terror?
The Virginia law makes it illegal to do this kind of thing and I'm glad that the court upheld it.
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