During the ceremony Shurtleff said, “Back in 2017, we wanted to have a simple ceremony to commemorate the Constitution Day and Boston’s rich Christian history. The speakers we had planned for that event are here today. I want to thank you, a special thanks to Liberty Counsel, and I want to give the glory to God...We have a great Constitution, and we have a wonderful First Amendment. But just like when it comes to muscles, if you don't use it, you get weak. When I got the rejection email from the city, and it said separation for church and state, I knew we had a case.” 

Staver said, “For 12 years prior to 2017, and for five years from 2017 to 2022, up until August 3, your viewpoint was excluded from this flagpole public forum. Every viewpoint was permissible to go on this public forum flagpole except a Christian viewpoint. You were excluded for 12 years before this issue began. For 12 years there were 284 applications, not a single denial, virtually no review and the only reason why Camp Constitution’s request to fly this flag was denied was not because of the flag itself. It was Hal Shurtleff’s view of that flag. It was because of one word in the application––the word ‘Christian’ that preceded the word ‘flag.’ He was told by the city official that if he changed the name of the flag to a non-religious name on the application, that flag could have flown in 2017 if Hal would have lied and called it the Camp Constitution flag. This is not the Camp Constitution flag. It is the Christian flag.” 

After Staver argued the case before the U.S. Supreme Court on January 18, 2022, the High Court ruled 9-0 on May 2 that the city of Boston violated the Constitution by censoring a private flag in a public forum open to “all applicants” merely because the application referred to it as a “Christian flag.” The High Court stated that it is not government speech, and because the government admitted it censored the flag because it was referred to as a Christian flag on the application, the censorship was viewpoint discrimination, and there is no Establishment Clause defense. 

With Justice Breyer writing the opinion, the High Court wrote that “Boston did not make the raising and flying of private groups’ flags a form of government speech. That means, in turn, that Boston’s refusal to let Shurtleff and Camp Constitution raise their flag based on its religious viewpoint ‘abridg[ed]’ their ‘freedom of speech.’” 

In addition, the Court wrote, “Here, Boston concedes that it denied Shurtleff ’s request solely because the Christian flag he asked to raise ‘promot[ed] a specific religion.’ App. to Pet. for Cert. 155a (quoting Rooney deposition). Under our precedents, and in view of our government-speech holding here, that refusal discriminated based on religious viewpoint and violated the Free Speech Clause” (emphasis added).