The Babylon Bee this week joined The Onion in urging the Supreme Court to defend the First Amendment against an Ohio law that makes parody a felony. The case, which the Institute for Justice is asking the Court to take up, involves Parma resident Anthony Novak, who in 2016 was prosecuted for violating a state law against using a computer to "disrupt, interrupt, or impair the functions of any police, fire, educational, commercial, or governmental operations." Novak supposedly did that by creating a parody of the Parma Police Department's Facebook page.
Among other things, the fake Facebook page included a job notice saying the department "is strongly encouraging minorities to not apply," a warning that Parma had banned food handouts so "the homeless population" would "leave our city due to starvation," and an announcement of "our official stay inside and catch up with the family day," during which anyone venturing outside between noon and 9 p.m. would be arrested. The police department was not amused.
