Freedom of speech, as long as you say everything I make you say

Mississippi, the worst-educated, most obese state in the union, checks in with a little gem in their messed-up court system. Some judge unilaterally decides he is going to say the Pledge of Allegiance in his courtroom, and everyone's going to play. Fine, I guess, it's your courtroom. Oh wait - you mean to arrest anyone who doesn't do what you tell them to, on some shaky contempt-of-court grounds? Hmm.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/07/danny-lampley-arrested-pledge-of-allegiance_n_755074.html

TUPELO, Miss. — When a Mississippi judge entered a courtroom and asked everyone to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, an attorney with a reputation for fighting free speech battles stayed silent as everyone else recited the patriotic oath. The lawyer was jailed.
Attorney Danny Lampley spent about five hours behind bars Wednesday before Judge Talmadge Littlejohn set him free so that the lawyer could work on another case. Lampley told The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal he respected the judge but wasn't going to back down.

And in a two-for-the-price-of-one update, let's see what other stupid things happened in Mississippi in the last 20 years...

"I thought he was a disgrace to the United States," Bobby Martin, a 43-year-old self-employed maintenance worker, said of Lampley. "If he can't say that in front of a judge, he don't deserve to be here" in this country.
Others voiced support for the attorney.
"I'm speechless. The judge needs a reminder copy of the First Amendment," said Judith Schaeffer, a Washington attorney who, along with Lampley, successfully sued the Pontotoc school district in northern Mississippi in the 1990s to stop students from praying over the intercom.

The rest of the country figured out separation of church and state a long time ago. It's still confusing for the Confederates. They're still too busy separating their black and white proms.