act we argued that that it violates the first amendment and the fourteenth amendment violates the first amendment because it's content based and also not merely tailored and violates the fourteenth  under this statute you can be intentionally an innocent reasonably disturbing as you want and it doesn't violate law unless your intentionally and unreasonably disturbing by using profane discourse or rude or in disobey havior or noise we don't challenge the noise part but as far as you'd have to examine the expressive activity to see if it's profane or that the activity is rude or indecent to determine whether or not there is a violation of the statute so that is one of the ways in which the statute is content   as to the effect of it and you think this is this is content based even without this regard to its impact on the speaker i mean on the on the listener well alarms i think i would be content based but we also have the second part here which the supreme court of mcallen said to be clear the act would not be content neutral if it was concerned with the undesirable effects that arise from the impact of speech on listeners and  the statute and the second piece of it requires that the expressive activity disturb the woman to be of worship service and that is an impact on listeners that was not present in vague as to fail to put reasonable people on notice as to whether their expressive activity is going to violate the statute profane and rude in indecent are all words that have multiple that they understand that their speech is disturbing and they start off by saying we're sorry to bother you that they don't intend to be profane rude or indecent and their speech but that they are not sure how to is the right constitutional right to be quietly disruptive well if disruptive is the effect on a listener yes how can you me now well that is exactly the vagueness problem is that i don't know how you measure disruptive it would be up to a police officer and a judge i suppose after you're arrested to determine whether or not there was a disruption to the say did say fuck the draft it would be profane and it could and could disturb the woman d of a worship service and therefore it would be reasonable for someone to refrain from engaging in that expressive and when that combines both verses barry it was a violation to engage in speech that would affront the dignity of embassies you know that was also found to be content based and that's very similar  in inappropriate sexual behavior and and says if you if you know about this you should talk about it and if you you should call for transparency and if you're a victim  should tell so i think that that not what everyone wants on their way to to mass and it can be disturbing but other people would not find it disturbing and this statute as it's written requires the speaker to to guess whether or not individuals will find it disturbing and and unreasonably disturbing so it doesn't have to just be disturbing has to be unreasonably disturbing through your profane rude or indecent speech so th they had in the past because because of the law and there is another group that that their testimony is that they had that they're sometimes invited on church property this law you know does not have an not there is a separate subsection of the law that we're not challenging that prohibits interfering with the and dress and and a dress from from from the church like to reserve the remainder my time for a bubble girl thank you it please the court and you heard from the missouri attorney general's office on behalf of the appellee its in phelps roper the v city of manchester this court and bank held that the government may restrict disruptive and unwelcome speech to protect unwilling listeners when there are other important interests at stake this case implicates implicates two fundamental right we didn't cite who i'm sorry our own bank opinion did not cite blues which was the basis from a column leading me to think mcallen has drastically impacted our jurisprudence well i would buy me you need to you need to address that i will address that your hon the not not now you know whenever you get there church this case and implicates two fundamental in fundamental rights both the freedom of speech and the freedom of free exercise of religion when  two fundamental rights compete again this court has held that the courts must find an acceptable balance between the constitutionally protected rights of law abiding speakers and unwilling listeners and the district court in this case ruled that missouri's house of worship protection act strikes that acceptable balance by prohibiting expressive conduct that intentionally and unreasonably disrupts religious service as mr offered said how i don't what's the two three four different you know certain religious hours that day and then we get into the family stuff in the afternoon and evening in many churches how much of that is covered by this crystal clear term worship service i believe the reference to solemnity of the worship service is a qualifier in the section of the statute that talks about how close the protest or the con the conduct has to be it has to be so close as to disturb a close to what it's based on a sunday school class is that is that a worship service i think it would depend on the on the content of the of  the so to answer your question just look in the the prescription applies to disrupting a house of worship that either occurs plan exact language here within the house of worship or so near it as you disturb the order and solemnity of the worship services so services there is there is qualifies the distance the range how far this extends but i would agree with your honor that and a public for from a public forum yes your honor he impacts listeners to private speech yes that is correct i don't know that we've got any other other any other cases that sought on the way in or the way out i would read that that that that they did see it on the way in or the way out and whatever worship service means i don't think it can extend to people on the sidewalk outside the church the issue is this must disrupt or noise what is there i suppose you could have bright lights of some sort that would be strobe lights or something of that nature without profanity crisis noise and less it's loud yeah yeah i would say i i figure out what to what are what speech are we winning and why here i think i can offer two explanations for that your honor one is that this exact language would be rude or indecent behavior profane discourse and making noise is language that has been on the statute books in missouri and other states for one hundred fifty years that exact phrase has been used in many many statutes across the country and so i think when this law was enacted  the legislature took language that had been in common use from earlier but the operative words here are not profane or rude the operative words are intentional and unreasonable noisy profane discourse that was it your logic would be content i don't agree with that your honor i don't believe that the statement profane is a is content base i think it has to do with the nature of the we're talking about religious services profane as a word that by definition is related to religion this is a word that describes a particular kind of behavior in the context of a religious service so it's reaching conduct that is disruptive of that service through that's not true and good profane can have some nuances in religion intended to prohibit a speaker from intentionally being disruptive vigorous to be intentionally rude in the speaker's own mind even though it's not rude to the view right if the speaker is intending to be rude that would qualify under the statute but about what it's a very good show about how many churches in the list for example or be think the record is entirely clear on that but it seems that it's a fairly small number in the sense that it's not more than you know it's not one hundred people the name plaintiffs i think there are about six or seven plaintiffs i don't know that does that number of top of my head but there are groups also and sometimes the groups have more people that would show up in other times with the government's interest be satisfied by prohibiting only noisy disruptive speech or  if it were intentional and under reasonable no it is i think that would omit other forms of expression that were not based on volume so the example i gave or if you had somehow you know of searchlight that you shined on the windows of the church during the church service that wouldn't be noisy but it would be rude i think we would say that's rude if you're doing it for the purpose of structuring the spoken or written and that is intentionally disruptive phrasing nala through word i suppose if you did that with your right if you did that within a christian church i would think that would be disruptive if you did outside  christian church that would normally be on a public sidewalk for example would be a public forum and you would be free to do that except if your conduct reaches into that church and so normally that would be by volume that that's the way the most likely way  in or after they come out there's really nothing in the complaint that alleges anything that these plaintiffs do reaches inside the church we're just on the right this is in that sense different from the record to show people are prevented from getting to church going to do nothing in the record showing that they are prevented from entering or exiting and then your honor and in that regard this you know this case is different than action began in which you actually had protesters barging into t cathedral and making noise inside clearly that would be covered by this statute but the statute reaches a little farther than that he on the point of narrow tailoring in owner of the city of lincoln which has since been overruled by this court the nebraska legislature had passed a law similar to this geared towards protecting the rights of citizens to engage in free exercise of religion this court held that that was  not narrowly tailored but in his opinion writing for the court judge arnold suggest that if the ordinance would have passed constitutional muster muster if it had been more narrowly tailored in the language he used was if for example anti abortion protesters were to attempt to interrupt church services with their own speech the city could adopt a more specific prohibition directed against disturbing or interrupting services of worship that dissolve missouri legislature has done that is what case that is the case of conduct or speech that is intentionally disruptive there is no danger that someone will accidentally violate the statute if they filed statutes because they meant to and we've asked that you affirmed the district's ruling thank you well if stand a higher standard and we have not really briefed whether this is a compelling interest although i think the in the lower court got to be least things that just aren't given our dialogue this morning i would agree with that your honor and i would say that the  nature of the prescription this case affects only what happens inside the church or only so near it as to affect or disrupt what's going on inside i can't think of a way that would be less restrictive than affecting speech however the balance comes out only one way and the record there's no evidence of any house of worship ever being disturbed ever ever in missouri any  be precise well well i think reading the law as a it's written it almost appears as you have to disturb the house of worship and house of worship is defined as a building or a public or or place so you know that that's an unusual phrasing i think and the other laws laws in other states that have been upheld in the past talk about disturbing a congregation or disturbing a group of people and we brought that up in our bigness discussion leadership i could conceive of a sign and our position my position would be that if it's on a public sidewalk outside the church that that if it did it cannot be restricted and there would be a content base so i think that is exactly what this law is trying to do which is take protected speech that offensive and that carries and carries the offense into the worship service and make it illegal based on the response of the listener which is content based in our view is so you wouldn't a person of average or normal understanding the difference between that which crosses the constitutional line and that which does well because it's based on the response of third parties i might know what would disturb me i don't know what's going to disturb each individual in that church and and perhaps perhaps it kind of gets you to the lowest common denominator as far as fortitude for taking cr