The 1st Amendment is pretty cut and dried. Its in plain English, easily understandable, and doesn’t use too many multi-syllabic words. Most of us learned it in grade school:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Allow me to play Devil’s Advocate for a moment. Do you see the word “protest” in the above paragraph? How about “demonstrate”? Neither do I. Are we potentially being assumptive when we presume that “protest” is covered under “peaceable assembly”? A case can be made that we are.
Should you and ten of your friends gather in a public park to hand out leaflets, you aren’t required to get permission from the government in the form
