Sign, sign, everywhere a sign.

Todd Starnes is a conservative commentator.  He is a regular on Fox News and he recently wrote an opinion piece for the network's website.  In it he tells the story of a restaurant in Penfield, NY and their desire to fly the banner shown below.

The problem with the banner is that the town has made it a rule that businesses are limited in banner posting.  Each business gets an annual allotment of three weeks and The Five Mile Cafe had already used theirs up before submitting a request to post this banner between Memorial Day and Independence Day.  The request was denied and according to Mr. Starnes, the town would be assessing fines against the owner, Jennifer Aquino.   She insisted on re-hanging the banner outside after the attack on Orlando, in spite of the ban.

In the piece, published on the Fox News website on 6/30/2016 Mr. Starnes writes the following:

"Jennifer tells me she never imagined there would be a day like this in America.

“I have lots of veterans in my family,” she said. “I have a cousin who fought in Desert Storm so that we could have the freedom to hang a banner that says, ‘God bless America.’”

And yet we live in a nation where you can be punished for simply being patriotic."

The problem is, Mr Starnes apparently doesn't bother to worry about the facts of a situation in his attempt to stir the emotions of his readers.

That's not easy to read, but it is a copy of a letter that Penfield City Council member Paula Metzler wrote about the issue of the banner at the Five Mile Cafe.  The important factoid from this letter is that at a meeting on May 25th, more than a month prior to the publication of the Starnes piece; an exemption to the three week allotment was granted to Ms Aquino.

So the statement by Mr. Starnes that Ms Aquino was being punished for being patriotic was in fact completely wrong.  Those facts are darn inconvenient things, aren't they Mr. Starnes?

There is a larger issue here.  In the more than 500 comments posted thus far on the  Facebook page of the Five Mile Cafe, a number implied or outright stated that the limits on banners shouldn't apply to this one because those limits violated the free speech rights of Ms Aquino.

In general the courts have upheld limitations on signage as long as those limits aren't content-based.  You can read more about this here.  So the town's limits on banners based solely on the amount of time that a sign can legally be displayed are not a violation of any of Ms Aquino's rights.

What is more disturbing is the idea that because the message of Ms Aquino's banner is considered by the public to be patriotic, it should be exempted from those limits.  What people just cannot wrap their heads around is that freedom of speech applies to all speech, except that where laws have been passed prohibiting them; where that law has been found to be constitutional.  Shouting fire in a crowded theater, the time-honored example used to prove there are exceptions to free speech rights still works to prove that point.

So if an exemption was granted because of the content of Ms Aquino's banner, as Ms Metzler suggests in her letter, I find the granting of the exemption disquieting.  Why is patriotic speech to be favored?  If we have the right to express ourselves freely, all speech that is legal must therefore be legal.

If Ms Aquino were a supporter of Donald Trump and she wanted to post a banner that reads "Ban Muslims" then should she still receive an exemption?  If she wanted to express solidarity with Kentucky's infamous county clerk Kim David, and post a banner that reads "Ban the Abomination of Same-Sex Marriage" does she get an exemption?

We can't protect some speech at the expense of speech we don't want to hear.  The way to defeat hate speech isn't to limit or ban it, but to shine a bright light on it and those who express it.