burn US flag = ok, burn Mexican flag = crime

[JollyRoger]

Well he was at his "own" rally counterprotesting the other rally.

Not if he didn't have a city permit and the organizers of the rally did.

Wouldn't Tucson police mention that those were the rules after taking all this flak?

Yeah, but World Nut Daily wouldn't mention that they mentioned it.

 

[Little Raven]

But [before] you were saying what he did was wrong/illegal because he did it infront of a pro-immigration rally, saying that its illegal for the KKK to assemble at a NAACP rally. (I'm pretty sure thats untrue as it happens all the time with all sorts of groups with opposing opinions)

It's certainly not untrue here in Austin. The police are quite...enthusiastic...at times about making sure one group stays away from another. But as Jolly says, that can be highly dependant on local government.

I don't know if what Mr. Walker did was illegal. But if it was, it wasn't just because he was burning a Mexican flag. It was because of the location/timing/manner of the burning.

But not in a public place during a peaceful protest?

Note that it stopped being peaceful once Mr. Walker entered the scene. That may have something to do with why the police took exception to his presence.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Not if he didn't have a city permit and the organizers of the rally did.

Would his whole rally be illegal then with out a permit?

 

[Dovster]

You're free to offend. You're not free to threaten (snip) And believe me, if you burn a cross in front of a black man’s house, (whether it’s on his property or not) there won’t be a court in this nation that will buy the defense that you were just trying to offend him.

If I burn that cross in front of his home in rural Alabama, where he is one of the few Blacks who live there, the courts might well hold that I was trying to threaten him. If I do the same thing in Harlem, they will say that I was just trying to offend him.

(Of course, in the latter case it probably won't come to trial -- as my funeral will make the question moot.)

To cite case law, see The United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit decision concerning the right of Nazis to parade in Skokie, IL, a village in which a large number of Jews live -- many of them Holocaust survivors.

 

[JollyRoger]

Would his whole rally be illegal then with out a permit?

It depends. Again, the source cited in the OP is generally lacking on practical details in their articles and high on sensational details.

 

[Little Raven]

If I burn that cross in front of his home in rural Alabama, where he is one of the few Blacks who live there, the courts might well hold that I was trying to threaten him. If I do the same thing in Harlem, they will say that I was just trying to offend him.

I doubt that very much. And I don't find your case law very compelling. What analogy is there between an organized parade, which requires permits from the city, appropriate security, pre-determined routes, etc, and setting a cross on fire in the middle of the night?

Now, if you're holding a KKK rally, and you get all the appropriate city permissions, and have sufficient cops on hand to make sure everything goes well, then of course you're free to burn the cross...even in Alabama. But that's not the scenario I'm talking about. Your standard cross burning, as practiced in the Old South, is not going to be protected speech, whether you do it in Maine or the backwoods of Mississippi.