Today in Supreme Court History: November 27, 1964

11/27/1964: WGCB carried a 15-minute broadcast by the Reverend Billy James Hargis as part of the "Christian Crusade" series. This broadcast gave rise to Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission (1969).

The Warren Court (1969)

Comments

[Frank Drackman]

Red Lion?
Awful Hotel chain confined mostly to the West Coast with some metastatic lesions in Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky, PA, Brooklyn (Why?) Used mostly by Truckers (and their natural Flora/Fauna (mostly Fauna, in short shorts) who are trying to save a few Shekels from the more "Upscale" places like Super 8.
None in Arizona (they check for Red Lions at the border)
Last time I've seen a TV with a rotary tuner, and the "Magic Fingers" Vibrating Bed (Hey now!)

Frank

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Fairness Doctrine case. Douglas later opposed it.

Various SCOTUS opinions (majority, concurring, or dissents) cited Thanksgiving proclamations as a reason to uphold government religious acknowledgments. For instance:

Our history is replete with official references to the value and invocation of Divine guidance in deliberations and pronouncements of the Founding Fathers and contemporary leaders. Beginning in the early colonial period long before Independence, a day of Thanksgiving was celebrated as a religious holiday to give thanks for the bounties of Nature as gifts from God. President Washington and his successors proclaimed Thanksgiving, with all its religious overtones, a day of national celebration [Footnote 2] and Congress made it a National Holiday more than a century ago.

(Lynch v. Donnelly)

Our current Thanksgiving holiday is not exactly a consistently religious one. People celebrate and give thanks in a variety of ways. Presidents (and Trump did so) can give thanks to God, if they wish, but it should not be an official establishment in the name of the country at large. Not everyone believes in God or in that sort of acknowledge of God, even if God exists.

Official religious acknowledgments should also reflect the diversity of our nation. Justice Blackmun noted the possible sectarian nature of Thanksgiving proclamations in a creche case:

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/492/573/#T53

Happy Thanksgiving however you celebrate.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Anybody wanting to know more about the FCC and "the public interest" nonsense could do worse than read Political Spectrum by Thomas Hazlett, reviewed here https://www.hoover.org/research/how-electromagnetic-spectrum-became-politicized. It's also amazing how much technology they delayed -- FM radio, color TV, cell phones, cable TV, WiFi, and probably others I've forgotten.