The next time some Jehovah's Witnesses interrupt your dinner, you might consider thanking them. In gritty dedication to their religious principles, this out-of-the-mainstream denomination of scarcely 1 million members has probably done more than any other institution to secure freedom of speech for individual Americans.
On Monday, they scored another victory. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that local authorities have no right to require the Witnesses -- or anyone else -- to get a license before they can talk to their neighbors about religion, politics or most other topics.
Outrageous as it sounds, that's what Stratton, Ohio, tried to impose. In the name of protecting elderly residents from door-to-door canvassers, the village board required anyone wanting to knock on doors to promote a ''cause'' to register first. By that reasoning, voters could be forced to get a permit from an unpopular mayor before collecting signatures for his ouster.
The court said that ''it is offensive . . . to the very notion of a free society that in the context of everyday public discourse a citizen must first inform the government of her desire to speak to her neighbors and then obtain a permit to do so.''
For the Witnesses, going to the high court is a familiar routine. In more than two dozen cases over 65 years, they've effectively fought against the tyranny of the majority.
In 1943, the issue was allowing Witness children to opt out of the Pledge of Allegiance at school because they believe that paying homage to a flag places another deity before God. ''No official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion,'' the court said then.
Over the years, numerous decisions on Witnesses' leafleting practices have established that all political and religious views, no matter how narrowly held, have the right to compete for public attention.
Even when the Witnesses have lost, free speech has won. The rantings of a particularly fiery street-corner evangelist were held to be ''fighting words,'' beyond First Amendment protection. Still, that 1942 case has helped block politically correct speech codes, as long as statements don't violate the court's standard of inflicting injury or inciting ''an immediate breach of the peace.''
Yes, religious canvassers, whatever their faith, make a lot of people uncomfortable. But folks can easily turn them away. And the often-unpopular Jehovah's Witnesses, by insisting on respect for their rights, continue to widen the religious and political freedoms of 280 million other Americans.