owl flight on Nostr: North Carolina lawmakers are trying to repeal a 2020 law that permitted the wearing ...
North Carolina lawmakers are trying to repeal a 2020 law that permitted the wearing of face masks in public. Interestingly, the article indicates that the pre-pandemic restrictions against public masking were put into place in the 1950s to limit Ku Klux Klan activity.
There is probably greater justification for laws that prohibit public masking than for laws that require it. However, I would argue that both types of laws are ultimately unconstitutional on first amendment grounds.
Choosing to cover one's face, and choosing not to do so, can both be expressive conduct that a person may engage in for any number of reasons, including importantly to convey political messages. Requiring people to mask against their will was an odious illegal policy that amounted to compelled speech. But requiring people to refrain from masking also restricts a person's ability to engage in expressive conduct (be it political or otherwise), and the interest in protecting speech and self-expression seems to me to greatly outweigh whatever interest the state may have had in limiting Klan activity or other public safety concerns. Ideally, all code sections that deal with public masking should simply be repealed.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/north-carolina-lawmakers-push-bill-to-ban-most-public-mask-wearing-citing-crime/ar-BB1msIcE
There is probably greater justification for laws that prohibit public masking than for laws that require it. However, I would argue that both types of laws are ultimately unconstitutional on first amendment grounds.
Choosing to cover one's face, and choosing not to do so, can both be expressive conduct that a person may engage in for any number of reasons, including importantly to convey political messages. Requiring people to mask against their will was an odious illegal policy that amounted to compelled speech. But requiring people to refrain from masking also restricts a person's ability to engage in expressive conduct (be it political or otherwise), and the interest in protecting speech and self-expression seems to me to greatly outweigh whatever interest the state may have had in limiting Klan activity or other public safety concerns. Ideally, all code sections that deal with public masking should simply be repealed.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/north-carolina-lawmakers-push-bill-to-ban-most-public-mask-wearing-citing-crime/ar-BB1msIcE