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First Amendment. American Political Institutions Fawn Gibson. First Amendment.
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First Amendment American Political Institutions Fawn Gibson
First Amendment • Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
First Amendment- Freedom of Religion The Lemon Test requires that in order to be constitutional laws related to religion must : • Have a clear secular, or nonreligious purpose • Have a primary, or central, effect that neither advances or inhibits religion • Avoid excessive entanglement between church and state.
First Amendment- Freedom of speech Most would agree that free speech is critical, it is not unlimited: • The clear and present danger test • the government had the right to prevent namely interference with the war effort and national security.
First Amendment- Freedom of speech • Obscenity: The court has consistently ruled that obscenity is not a form of speech protected by the First Amendment.
First Amendment- Freedom of speech • Symbolic speech: Symbolic speech is covered like any other form of speech • Hate speech or symbols are considered outside the protection of free speech.
First Amendment- Freedom of speech • Fighting words: The theory is that certain derogatory words spoken directly in another’s face are not the kind of rational discussion intended to be protected by the first amendment.
First Amendment- Freedom of the Press • Freedom of the Press is closely related to free speech. • Oral speech defaming another is called slander and written speech is called libel.
First Amendment- Freedom of the Press • Pass a law that requires newspapers to publish information against their will. • Impose criminal penalties, or civil damages, on the publication of truthful information about a matter of public concern or even on the dissemination of false and damaging information about a public person except in rare instances.
First Amendment- Freedom of the Press • Impose taxes on the press that it does not levy on other businesses. • Compel journalists to reveal, in most circumstances, the identities of their sources. • Prohibit the press from attending judicial proceedings and thereafter informing the public about them.
First Amendment -freedom of Petition and Assembly • Without the right to appeal to those in power, there would be no effective way of influencing them. • Without the right to assemble peaceably, political rallies could not be held.
