Reed v. Town of Gilbert

After following the Reed v. Town of Gilbert case closely, I have become more frustrated with the continued arguments in the Supreme Court. Many people are arguing this as a religious rights case, but I do not agree. This case is about the distinction on the basis of what the sign can say in the town of Gilbert in regard to time, place and manner.

I understand the city’s perspective for their decision to regulate specific signs (political, ideological, directional, etc.), but I believe this is a constitutional issue that the town is not recognizing. They are not allowing a church to keep their directional signs up for longer than 12 hours because they are under the category of directional signs with very strict guidelines on content, placement and time. The church would like to invite people to their service and give directions to the service, but why even bother with signs if they can only put them up as the sun is going down and they are required to remove them an hour after the service?

I think this case involves a Free Speech Clause challenge and not a Free Exercise Clause or Religious Freedom Restoration Act challenge. I would like to know the governments compelling interest for this ordinance. This argument is about free speech rights for everyone who would like to use signs in the city for an event, not just religious rights in Gilbert, Arizona.

Currently, the Supreme Court is using strict scrutiny to review the case: “Strict scrutiny is a form of judicial review that courts use to determine the constitutionality of certain laws. To pass strict scrutiny, the legislature must have passed the law to further a ‘compelling governmental interest,’ and must have narrowly tailored the law to achieve that interest” (Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/strict_scrutiny). Their concern for safety and aesthetics does not seem like a good enough reason to restrict the amount of time directional signs are allowed to be placed, especially when compared to the political signs that are there almost all year long in the right-of-way. How is this respecting their freedom of speech?

It’s not. The city has responded by saying they were complying with a statute of the state; in other words, “The State made us do it”. I think the Supreme Court understands how absurd this statute is and believes freedom of speech, our First Amendment right, is being violated in the town of Gilbert. The US Supreme Court, in my opinion, should rule this unconstitutional. These statutes need to be reviewed and changed before any other First Amendment rights are violated.