Publicly displaying symbols identifying one’s affiliation with very specific and unprotected groups is not comparable to political speech. This is a fallacious argument at best and smells of bad faith engagement.
The “very specific and unprotected groups” you are talking about are political movements (even if non-mainstream) and hence expressing support for them is just as much political speech as any political donation is. All political speech, even extremist political speech, is protected in the US by the First Amendment, unless it incites “imminent lawless action” (see Brandenburg v Ohio), or one of the other narrow exceptions provided for by SCOTUS’ jurisprudence.
Actually, it is allowed to limit free speech to meet “compelling state interests”, and I’m pretty sure SCOTUS would uphold limitations on judge’s off-the-job speech when necessary to maintain the appearance of judicial impartiality as such a compelling state interest. By contrast, I doubt they’d view limiting the speech of a judicial spouse as necessary to an equally compelling state interest.
Furthermore, unless you are a believer in coverture, Alito’s actions are separate from those of his wife, so once he made clear the flag was his wife’s decision not his, I don’t see how it is relevant. The law does not demand judges recuse themselves on the basis of views of their spouses which they may not share-especially when his wife’s expressive act was not directly commenting on any specific case, at most it was a vague expression of political affiliation-and it isn’t even clear what she personally understands that flag to mean.
> This is a fallacious argument at best and smells of bad faith engagement.
It isn’t a fallacious argument. Rather, suggesting that anyone who disagrees with you is guilty of “bad faith engagement”-that’s a fallacious argument.
I heard comments like yours all the time when people were saying we needed to take QAnon more seriously. People thought it was fringe, that people concerned were “terminally online.” Even as we saw their talking points work their way into mainstream conservative outlets.
Then January 6th happened. Everyone knows what QAnon is now.
Did you notice that the link in the comment you were replying to, has a photo of that “Appeal to Heaven” flag from a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020? And it seems clear it was being flown by BLM supporters, not anti-BLM counterprotestors.
You want to claim that other meanings are purely historical and in contemporary usage it exclusively means “white Christian nationalist”. If the only other examples of its usage people could point to were from decades ago, your argument might have some force. But, given we have photographic evidence of people with a diametrically opposite ideology using it less than 5 years ago, your argument is not very convincing.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/show/former-neighbor-disput...
Their bogus excuse is very damning. Or at least real event they used as an excuse, but the timeline doesn’t make sense, so they’re lying.
The article you are citing is relying on the claims of an angry former neighbour. Why assume that the Alito's are lying or mistaken, when it seems just as possible that their ex-neighbour could be.
In any event, even if we assume the ex-neighbour's claims are 100% true, they still don't prove (1) that Martha Alito flew the flag with intention to express a highly specific political message, (2) even supposing that was her intention, it still doesn't prove Samuel Alito was supporting her expressive act, as opposed to simply allowing his wife to do what she wants to do.
Getting abstract and dissembling about it doesn't change the fact that the meaning is clear and obvious to anyone who isn't sea lioning. It's clear to their supporters because it needs to be to be effective.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/show/former-neighbor-disput...
We can dispute the specifics of his motivations but clearly these have not been simple cases of “I just like the flag.” It’s also pretty bizarre to fly the flag upside down for fun.