On the one hand, I tend to be a major First Amendment supporter. Restricting the freedom to express one's opinion in public space is per se bad for society and dire slippery slope.
On the other hand, this was going on at my local Episcopal cathedral, on Palm Sunday (which usually starts outside the church to reflect the procession into Jerusalem, and thus is subject to outside disruption).
On the first hand, as is suggested here, restricting the freedom of speech because it might upset people is, generally speaking, a stupid reason to restrict it. In theory, meaningful political speech is going to upset people.
On the second hand, the people being upset (it is claimed) are children, for whom we often make special accommodation / restriction.
On the first hand again, there's a tremendous slippery slope in public speech if we allow "think of the children" to restrict what can be said.
On the second hand, I'm not particularly sympathetic to the speaker's political opinion.
On the first hand, I'm aware enough to realize that's a piss-poor reason to restrict speech.
So … I dunno. My sense is that this behavior by the protester was rude, but not unlawful, socially counter-productive, but not something that should be legally restricted. But …
Embedded Link
Church Suit Says Abortion Protest Upset Children – NYTimes.com
A Denver church is suing a man whose demonstration included showing pictures of fetuses, which the church says were too graphic.
There are a lot of hands, aren’t there? Too bad they didn’t just go after him for the shouting and disturbing the peace. He’s good at shouting at people, and has been arrested and served jail time. There is probably a better way of doing this. Sing those Palm Sunday hymns louder than the guy can shout. AFAIK, he doesn’t use a megaphone. Go and offer him juice and cookies. But, ‘think of the children’ isn’t going to cut any ice, IMO.
I’m inclined to agree, @Ellie, if only because that turns kids into rhetorical shields, and dumbs down discourse to a G rating.
I for one have long tired of the “think of the children” winge, it is not a valid arguement and never has been since all it has ever been used for is the supression of the rights of adults.
It’s tough to speak to others’ parenting, @BD, in this case, but I’m trying to think of how the children were brought to tears without the parents being able to forestall it.