Driving throw the center of town there was more then the usual amount of protesters outside Planned Parenthood. Usually it is 2 today there were 6.
I’ve decided a thumbs down my only reasonable method of disapproval so I do that and we give each other dirty looks.
This center doesn’t even offer abortions yet these people hold up their profile signs and such. I guess it just happens to be within walking distance or something for them.
Today driving by I saw they’d attached a sign to one of the lamp posts. I’m pretty sure they aren’t allowed to do that so I stopped at the city hall which is maybe a few hundred yards further down the street.
First stop was the town clerks office, right when you walk in the door, I asked who I had to make a complaint to, they sent me to the mayors office. The mayors office asked me to specify the type of lamp post because transparently some belong to the city and some belong to the power company. It was one of the cities lamp posts, so they referred me to the DPW.
The DPW is on the 4th floor and I didn’t want to travel up their to find the usual no one around so I opted not to go up there and headed out. I gave the DPW a call they directed me to the commissioner. I told him my issue, he asked if the sign was offensive in nature and if it needed to be taken down immediately. I wasn’t quite sure how to answer that, the content of the sign was not my issue and I didn’t even remember was it said’ I told him ‘I don’t think it was ‘offensive’ but I didn’t think you could post signage in the city without a permit’ he confirmed you can’t and said ‘if it’s still up tomorrow we’ll will take it down’.
My issue now is the protesters aren’t going to leave their sign there, they’ll take it down when they leave, but if I drive down tomorrow and no one has told them they can’t ‘post’ signs they’ll continue to due so and I’ll see their stupid sign attached to a lamp post again.
Questions I have are: Would you notice or even react to protesters posting a sign?
Who would you think to call and talk to if you saw this?
Do you think the city should take any action?
We have a lot of anti abortion protests in my town, so I definitely notice the signs. If I saw protesters violating some sort of law, I’d call— well, that’s not entirely honest. I mean, if there were protesters I thought were such low scumbags as the type you described, I’d definitely report them if I had even the faintest reason to.
As to what the city should do, the city should monitor and make sure the protesters are playing by the rules. If they aren’t, they should be fined or whatever is on the books for dealing with that.
Personally, I think you over thought the offense question. Of course the poster was offensive to you, otherwise you wouldn’t have been so moved to go try to get it removed.
I think that if the City has an ordinance which prohibits the posting of signs, they should enforce it, and enforce it fairly. So yes, they should take action.
The question should never have been asked!
It gets into judging the content of the signs, as in the city government deciding some signs are allowed and others are not – based on the content of the signs. Our First Amendment free speech rights are supposed to be completely independent of the content of the speech. The city can make rules about the size of signs, or their placement, or flashing lights, etc. – but not rules based on the sign’s content.
Unless it’s obscene. At least that’s the way the Supreme Court has been ruling on the matter.
Starting in 1897 with Dunlop v US which was about mailing a “lewd” newspaper to Roth v US 1957 where it was determined that obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected freedom of speech or press. The latter was overturned by Miller v California by making it about it getting into the hands of minors. So if a minor were walking down the street and saw the poster listed in the OP, there’s the problem. “Won’t somebody think of the children” shrieking would ensue and they’d have a case.
I disagree with these rulings, but they’re still there.
It sounded to me like he was asking, “Should I go drive over there tonight to take it down because otherwise it will be on the nightly news for warping our fine youth, or can I send Clyde over there in the morning?”
Not all politicians’ decisions are political; sometimes they’re just practical.
(But I do agree that the sign *was *offensive by some definition of the word, or it wouldn’t have inspired the effort the OP expended to get it removed.)
I think the PP office should do a McDonalds style sign that reads:
“This office has provided the following services:
Birth Control Perscriptions: in 2012: xxx ever: xxx
Cancer Screenings: in 2012: xxx ever: xxx
Early Cancer Detections: in 2012: xxx ever: xxx
Abortions: in 2012: zero ever: zero”
In this case the city my not want to escalate the situation with the protestors. They’re looking for attention (for their cause) anyway they can get it. Any sort of action against them plays into their goals. A sign they put up on a post might not be worth the battle. The next day there may be 5 signs on that post.
The Planned Parenthood protestors don’t seem to give up easily. We had a few show up for months standing around outside the door. They finally leave for a few months and then return. It’s been dragging on for years and years.
There’s your answer right there. Apply for a permit to post your sign on the lamposts. Something like the “People Standing Under this Sign are Chucleheads” or the like. Then put it up on the surrounding posts, and wait for them to mess with it … profit!
If it reappears, then go there after hours, take it down, and put up some pro-choice fliers. Be there when they arrive the next day, and see their reaction.
If they tear down your signage and put up their own, then walk over and tear it down in front of them. If they don’t respect your signage, then they certainly have no reason to expect anyone to respect theirs.
Of course, there’s every chance you have a life and don’t want to bother with all that.
Wait, if they put it back, wouldn’t it still be there tomorrow? It doesn’t matter that they took it down overnight.
And if you really want them to know, I guess you could pretend to be one of them, go over there, and then freak out when you see the sign, saying that it’s illegal and that police might come and stop the protest. Don’t blame you if you don’t want to, though.