Anti-protest laws at funerals

[Darth_Panda]

@t-bonham@scc.net

@Darth_Panda

Couldn’t the city just offer to rent limited property rights to a reasonably large area around the site of the funeral for fifty bucks to anyone involved in a lawful burial and include within those property rights the right to prevent others from demonstrating against your funeral (and by prevent, I mean prevent in the same sense that you prevent it on your personal property, which is by calling th cops).

Would that include renting out the public sidewalks & streets in the vicinity for private use only? Because I can see problems with that.

Many of the funeral homes & churches in my hometown are right in residential neighborhoods, with houses or other businesses right next to them. Wouldn’t they object if their access is restricted by this? The 2 largest funeral homes face each other, directly across a major street in town. Shutting that street down would certainly mess up traffic around town.

Normally, to shut down streets you need a parade permit. Those cost much more than $50 (and don’t include the sidewalks, etc.). Giving a permit so much cheaper to funerals seems legally questionable under “equal treatment under the laws”.
And again, what you are trying to do is to find some sneaky way of undercutting the freedoms that are guaranteed by our First Amendment. Aren’t you better off doing as my mother taught me as a child: just ignore those who are making fools of themself in public.

This is why I said that you would rent them limited rights to the area. The renters would still have to allow people to use the streets and sidewalks for normal daily activities.

And no, I don’t think that there is anything sneaky about it at all. If people are willing to purchase something that the city could offer at a price and both parties would be better off afterwards, then the deal should be done - we are a capitalist country after all

Does it limit 1st Amendment rights? Yup. But so does the government selling a piece of property to a party that never lets anyone demonstrate on it. So what?

Is it attempting to circumvent a problem through a legal technicality? Yes. But the first amendment stays intact, the distastefulness goes away, and the city has a few extra bucks with which to clean up grafitti or whatever. I’m OK with that.