{"id":2002268,"date":"2023-08-16T10:11:02","date_gmt":"2023-08-16T14:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/court-revives-lawsuit-alleging-dc-double-standard-blm-but-not-pro-life-graffiti-allowed\/"},"modified":"2023-08-16T10:12:37","modified_gmt":"2023-08-16T14:12:37","slug":"court-revives-lawsuit-alleging-dc-double-standard-blm-but-not-pro-life-graffiti-allowed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/court-revives-lawsuit-alleging-dc-double-standard-blm-but-not-pro-life-graffiti-allowed\/","title":{"rendered":"Court revives lawsuit claiming DC&#8217;s double standard: BLM graffiti permitted, but not pro-life."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcourt-revives-lawsuit-alleging-dc-double-standard-blm-but-not-pro-life-graffiti-allowed%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2002268&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n<h2>Appeals \u200cCourt Revives Lawsuit Alleging Discrimination \u200bin Anti-Graffiti Enforcement<\/h2>\n<p>A U.S.\u200c appeals\u2063 court on Tuesday breathed new life into a lawsuit claiming that the District of Columbia selectively enforced \u2063an anti-graffiti law, discriminating against pro-life\u200b protesters while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/court-revives-lawsuit-alleging-dc-double-standard-blm-but-not-pro-life-graffiti-allowed\/\" title=\"Court revives lawsuit claiming DC's double standard: BLM graffiti permitted, but not pro-life.\">allowing racial \u200djustice demonstrators<\/a> to go unpunished in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in a unanimous 3-0 decision, found that two <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/remember-when-media-freaked-out-over-amy-coney-barrett-and-the-right-wing-supreme-court\/\" title=\"Remember When Media Freaked Out Over Amy Coney Barrett And The Right Wing Supreme Court?\">anti-abortion groups<\/a> had presented a plausible case that \u200cthe D.C. government had &#8220;discriminated\u200b on the basis of viewpoint in the selective enforcement of its \u200bdefacement ordinance.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit was filed in 2021 by the Frederick Douglass Foundation and Students for Life of America after two protesters were arrested for writing &#8220;Black Pre-Born Lives Matter&#8221; on a public sidewalk during an August 2020 demonstration.<\/p>\n<p>The foundation argued that D.C. authorities had neglected\u200c to enforce the\u200b anti-graffiti law during widespread protests following the murder of George Floyd, while vigorously enforcing it against them during the same period.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Washington\u2064 officials can&#8217;t silence messages they disagree with,&#8221; stated Erin Hawley, a lawyer for the organizations representing the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom.<\/p>\n<p>The \u200bdistrict contended that it had \u200dprioritized police resources on other matters \u200bduring the large demonstrations\u2063 that followed Floyd&#8217;s\u2064 death. A spokesperson for \u2063the \u2062D.C. attorney general did not immediately respond to a request for \u2063comment.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg dismissed the lawsuit, stating that the groups had failed\u2062 to provide evidence of discriminatory intent by the D.C. government.<\/p>\n<p>The appeals court, however, determined that the organizations only needed to demonstrate that the two groups of protesters were \u2064in similar situations and \u2062that\u200c the enforcement of the law \u200cviolated the anti-abortion groups&#8217; right to freedom of speech under the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is fundamental to our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/states-push-to-rein-in-big-tech-as-federal-gears-grind-slow\/\" title=\"States Push to Rein in Big Tech as Federal Gears Grind Slow\">free speech rights<\/a> that the government \u200ccannot pick and choose between speakers, not when regulating and not when enforcing the laws,&#8221; emphasized the court.<\/p>\n<p>(Reporting by\u200d Andrew Goudsward; Editing by David Bario and Jonathan \u2062Oatis)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A U.S. appeals court revived a lawsuit alleging that the District of Columbia selectively enforced an anti-graffiti law against pro-life protesters but not racial justice demonstrators in 2020. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a unanimous 3-0 decision, determined that two anti-abortion groups had validly claimed the D.C. government&#8217;s bias.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2002269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2002268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2002268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2002269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2002268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2002268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2002268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}