The U.S. Supreme Court handed down an extremely important ruling this past Thursday. In an 8-1 vote, the court ruled that public disclosure of the names and addresses of persons signing petitions is not a violation of the First Amendment.
The case, Doe v. Reed, comes from Washington State. The legislature had granted same-sex couples all the benefits of marriage except the word itself. People who do not believe same-sex couples should have those benefits organized. They got like-minded people to sign a petition to force a referendum on the new law. As required, the petition signers wrote their names and addresses on the petition. The petition drive got the required number of names and a referendum was placed on the ballot.
Some people who supported the law on same-sex benefits planned to publish on the Internet the names on the petition. At least some of the signers of the petition felt that would not be in their best interest and asked a court to forbid it. Their bizarre argument was that having their names made public would hinder their First Amendment right to free speech.