Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of Georgia answered a question that has long tormented American youth—or at least me when I was an American youth: If I flip off the pastor, can the police put me in jail?

Freeman was convicted of disorderly conduct, which under Georgia law requires “violent or tumultuous behavior.” (Prosecutors conceded that flipping someone off is not “violent,” but insisted it was “tumultuous.”)

As guaranteed by the First Amendment, “the freedom of speech” follows Americans into houses of worship, and everywhere else. Threats, incitement to riot, “fighting words,” defamation, fraud and a few other classes of expression are, as a matter of history, outside “the freedom of speech”; but otherwise, wherever in the U.S. speech occurs, a speaker cannot be punished by the state because of the message the speech conveys.