WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In the staid world of the U.S. Supreme Court, where decorum and etiquette are prized and silence is enforced by court police, the F-word could create quite a stir.
Yet that expletive and others will be the focus on Monday when the nine justices hear arguments in a free-speech case brought by Los Angeles-based clothing designer Erik Brunetti. His streetwear brand “FUCT” – which sounds like, but is spelled differently than, a profanity – was denied a trademark by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Brunetti has tried to calm concern about the potential for foul language during arguments in the ornate courtroom. In a written brief, his lawyer told the justices “the discussion will be purely clinical, analogous to when medical terms are discussed.”
At issue is a provision of U.S. trademark law that lets the trademark office deny requests for trademarks on “immoral” and “scandalous” words and symbols. Brunetti, 50, is challenging the law as an infringement of his right to freedom of expression, protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
In 2017, a Washington-based federal appeals court ruled in his favor. President Donald Trump’s administration has appealed that ruling to the conservative-majority Supreme Court. The provision at issue has been on the books for more than a century.
Uttering profanities inside the walls of the Supreme Court is one thing. The main concern, the administration said, is all the expletives and sexually graphic imagery that would flow into the marketplace if the law were to be struck down.
For Brunetti, the government’s fears are hypothetical.
“There are always going to be people who are offended, but you can’t control how everybody thinks,” Brunetti said in an interview. “When it has to do with the First Amendment, it’s a slippery slope.”
The justices struck down a similar law forbidding the registration of “disparaging” trademarks in a 2017 case involving an Asian-American dance rock band called The Slants, a name that trademark officials deemed offensive to Asians. Speech may not be banned even if it expresses ideas that offend, the court ruled.
Read the rest here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-profanity/f-words-and-t-shirts-u-s-supreme-court-weighs-foul-language-trademarks-idUSKCN1RO18W
In 1975 on the way to moving to Houston for a short time just to try to run my own life I stopped in New Orleans in a t-shirt shop and bought two t-shirts: “Have a shitty day” and “F*** Housework.” I gave the “F*** Housework” one to my then-sister-in-law. (I got my mother one that said, “To hell with housework, let’s move to Florida” which they did in 1980). So the govt. that robs trillions and murders millions is worried about “foul language”? Maybe I should send one of these “judges” a copy of one of my books…or “Catcher in the Rye,” which was published in the 1950s and is one of the first books to use the “f” word. Memo to illegal 14th amendment-Act of 1871-Admiralty “law” bogus “judges”–Go F Yourself!
“At issue is a provision of U.S. trademark law that lets the trademark office deny requests for trademarks on “immoral” and “scandalous” words and symbols.”
You mean those same words that everyone in the news (actors/politicians, and the even newscasters themselves) is using these days?
Kinda makes this b.s. moot, don’t it?
Especially since ZERO morality is the end goal anyway.
As if i gave a shit what they think
Oh. You said, “shit.”
.
Looks like George Carlin is in Big Trouble now.
RIP George…
George Carlin Seven Dirty Words
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George Carlin Expressions and Sayings
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God bless America? and F!@k Pride
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YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS – George Carlin