I’ve partially changed my mind and appologize for my knee-jerk post above.
If the kid was yelling throughout the event and thereby being disruptive, then I think he should have been removed. (And arrested if he refused.)
However, I do not think that anyone, anywhere, should ever be arrested or even threatened with arrest, or fined or in any way legally punished, for saying words that some people think are naughty. Or making hand gestures that some people find obscene.
Courtesy of Doper Hemlock’s blog/diary, trenchant political commentary by someone who fucked Ann Coulter in the ass, hard and lived to tell the tale (tail?).
(Miller standard for obscenity not cited).
This isn’t about obscenity though. The word ‘fuck’ has been ruled as not obscene in the most on point case I can think of. In Cohen v California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971), the Court reverse the conviction of a man for wearing a jacket with ‘Fuck the Draft’ on the back into an LA courthouse.
This isn’t to say the questioner here cannot be constitutionally arrested (I think they would have to try and make it stick under the Chaplinsky fighting words doctrine), but obscenity doesn’t fit.
Obscenity certainly fits, as the colloquial “fuck” and the literal “fuck” aren’t the same fucking thing.
If you were to say you got fucked by a traffic cop, I wouldn’t assume you got out of your ticket in a creative way, now would I?
What’s to stop him from giving you the ticket anyway? That he doesn’t want to spoil the rest of your day?
Occasionally I’m reminded that there are still “obscenity” laws on the books – laws written, allegedly, by adults. It always baffles me.
You know, I just went back to fully re-read Cohen, and I think the differential you are drawing is valid. I would still say the case would make it incredibly difficult to get an obscenity prosecution to stick on this (and the arrest was based on disorderly conduct not obscenity) but that comes from dicta in the case, not the holding.
The context doesn’t really matter any more. The sexual use of “fuck” is hardly prosecuted as obscenity anymore. Have you ever seen Def Comedy jam?
There isn’t even an allegation of obscenity in this case, just disorderly conduct. Like I said before, Ms. Coulter could have talked about ass-fucking all she wanted and not been arrested. This isn’t 1952 anymore.
While I agree that an arrest was probably overkill, I think the kid was being a jerk. Screaming profanity from the very beginning? Shouting over other people doesn’t support free speech. As much as I despite Ann Coulter’s opinions on just about everything, she should have the right to speak. If he wanted to phrase it as a legitimate question, he easily could have.
OK, I’m busted for hyperbole. Ann Coulter isn’t a “tyrant”, she’s just a windbag who’s enjoying her 15 minutes with a microphone. I think that equating disagreeing with the president with treason and suggesting those who express such disagreement be shot is advocating tyranny.
How can you have a “[sic]” with a homophone that wasn’t written?
Police reports: ya gotta love 'em!
Sorry, i should have been clearer.
The [sic] was mine.
I’m surprised she didn’t try to set the building on fire and blame the mean-ol’ Democrats for driving her to do it by filibustering Bush’s judicial nominations.
They’re pretty fuckin’ lax, really.
So the there was theirs. Not his.
Just to clarify, its isn’t an obscenity law…
Its a “fighting words” law.
http://www.oag.state.tx.us/opinions/op46white/mw-001.htm
Heres the texas AG opinion on the constitutionality of it…
Correct.