Like with the military when you join a law enforcement agency those "personal beliefs" get left at the door because of the job you signed up to do.
One of the biggest problems we have in society...not just communities like law enforcement or the military is the lack of assimilation into the American culture. We've allowed people to come here and allow balkanization to settle in. It's why the oath of allegiance by new citizens is read in whatever language they spoke in the country they were born in instead of English only. It's why every little liberal accommodation to "personal beliefs" has been allowed to creep into every aspect of our society and rot the American experience.
That "damned case law" you want me to read...was written by judges who clearly didn't leave their "biases" at the door when they wrote it.
And as was stated in the OP...
Sounds like the one that needs to check their biases at the door...is you.
Whatever chief. I’m sure you’ll have lots to whinge about how “Roberts has been compromised” if/when the Supreme Court rules in his favor.
Demonstrating allegiance to the United States through demonstrative acts like saluting the flag has no bearing on one’s skill or ability at being a local police officer, so there is no compelling government interest in enforcing a saluting requirement at the local police level.
Which, btw, is another relevant distinction to the hypothetical you whinged about above: it is, in fact, quite relevant to the function of a person as a soldier in a national military that the individual demonstrates his or her allegiance to that country. So requiring soldiers to salute is relevantly different than requiring municipal police officers to salute the national flag.
