Joe.My.God. LGBT News
Upper East Site reports:
In a victory for free speech, a Manhattan judge has dismissed a $3 million lawsuit against Upper East Site brought by The Comic Strip, the iconic Upper East Side comedy venue whose antisemitic and anti-vaccination social media post last year embroiled the venue in controversy. The judge even went as far to say that allowing the suit to continue would be unconstitutional.
“This Court upholds the importance of the First Amendment in protecting the right to free speech by the press,” wrote the Honorable Lisa S. Headley, in her decision filed Tuesday morning in Manhattan Supreme Court. “The plaintiff [The Comic Strip] fails to demonstrate actual malice, and thus, it would be a violation of the First Amendment to permit the plaintiff to proceed with this action against the defendants [Upper East Site],” Judge Headley explained.
The New York Daily News reports:
The courthouse heckling of the club — which helped launch the careers of Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock and Adam Sandler — is rooted in its owners’ decision to post a social media message that included hashtags about vaccine mandates and about Nuremberg, a reference that offended some Jewish groups.
The website, UpperEastSite.com, posted a story under the headline, “Iconic Comic Strip Club posts Anti-Semitic, Anti-Vax message on Instagram.”
The article, according to the lawsuit, criticized the Instagram post for drawing a link between COVID-19 vaccination mandates and the human experimentation done on Jews by Nazis in WWII Germany.
There’s much more at the first link above, including allegations that club misled city health inspectors during the height of the pandemic.
NEW: A judge dismissed The Comic Strip’s $3 million lawsuit against Upper East Site for reporting on the venue’s antisemitic, anti-vaccination Instagram post last year. FREE TO READ. https://t.co/nfpBJEoFvJ pic.twitter.com/J8iEQFFCuX
— UpperEastSite.com (@uppereastsiteny) April 11, 2023