Is Church Name Calling Constitutional?

From conservative WorldNetDaily, a story of calling a church a spade, and being taken to court for it. Doesn't the first amendment allow insults as long as they aren't damaging (like O'Reilly calling Dr. Tiller a killer for years?) I hate to say it but the Catholic church and their legal support, Thomas More Law, sound like sore losers who don't want discrimination called what it is: hateful, insulting, defamatory.

One of the article's paragraphs reads: "But referring to the Supreme Court rulings prohibiting excessive government entanglement in religion, Judge Andrew Kleinfeld asked, 'What could be more entangling than telling the cardinal to defy the Vatican?'" If the state can't get involved in the church's affairs, how can dictating the relationship between the cardinal and the Vatican be their business? And if the state's role is to protect citizens from discrimination, how can it allow the Church to discriminate?

And one quick note: we hear a lot about how the church is marginalized, discriminated against, being driven out of San Francisco (and other public places). Yet, what they really wish to do is marginalize, discriminate and drive out minority groups. Claiming discrimination in order to continue discriminating is not a logical position.

Judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals now are deciding whether a formal government document condemning Catholics as "hateful," "insulting" and "defamatory" and urging members to defy church beliefs is permissible under the U.S. Constitution's ban on government hostility toward religion.

The city of San Francisco formally adopted a resolution that condemned the Catholic church specifically for its moral teachings. The resolution was challenged by the Thomas More Law Center, a national Christian legal advocacy group based in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Oral arguments were presented to the 11 judges of the circuit appeals court yesterday in a case expected to "flush out what the U.S. Supreme Court means when it proclaims that the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution does not permit hostility toward religion."

The formal statement from the San Francisco Board of Supervisers attacked the church's belief because it prohibits the adoption of children by homosexual duos.

Read more here.