“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

We the People at the Gazette-Journal love the First Amendment. It lets us keep working. We are so grateful to the Founders for making freedom of the press part of this nation’s DNA.

By virtue of this most important amendment to the Constitution—the first of the 10 amendments known collectively as the Bill of Rights—the entire country benefits from these freedoms and must maintain them whenever threatened. Court rulings through the ages have affirmed them.

Out of nowhere, the Mathews County Board of Supervisors last month voted to make the county a “First Amendment Sanctuary,” whatever that is. The resolution cited not only the First Amendment, but similar expressions of freedom contained in the Constitutio...