Quote:
Originally Posted by The Drew
How is it exactly that these HOA's get away with being "private organizations" when essentially they are no different than a local government.
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This is what concerned the Supreme Court in Marsh v. Alabama. In that case, it was a company owned town and a Jehovah's Witness was arrested for passing out flyers in front of the post office. His advocacy being unwanted, he was arrested and charged with tresspass because it was private property. In overturning the conviction, the Supreme Court found that since the company owned town (all private property) was the functional equivalent of a governmental municipality it could not abridge freedom of speech or freedom of religion since these were paramount to private property rights in this particular case.
The Marsh doctrine was never expanded by the Supreme Court. Indeed, the original opinion was fractured with two seperate concurrences making up the majority. But is still considered to be good law (albeit with very narrow applications) by most legal professionals and academics.
Since the late 70's courts have largely left private property alone when applying constitutional gaurantees. I'm not going to opine on whether this is good or bad, but the particular result has been an abridgement of constitutional rights by privatization.