State of the Union: a T-Shirt Contest

[Invert]

When you go to a public school and you have a picture of 2 nude homosexuals performing anal sex (as an example) and the school tells you that you can't come to school like that I'm sure you won't go suing the school district saying that they violated your 1st amendment.

.............................?

You can't see the connection here to improper attire?

[CrAz3D]

Thats arather extreme example.
But works, I guess

[Grok]

I don't support either of the T-shirt wearers, but I do think the capitol police were wrong, and on 1st amendment freedom of speech grounds.  Let me explain.

The Supreme Court has long held that anytime you restrict "certain speech" and not "all speech", you are violating the speaker's free speech rights.  It has been upheld that you may ban all speech.

In this case, it was the intention of the law to ban all speech, but the application by the capitol police was incorrect.  They sought to ban speech on T-shirts only, that only had political messages.  In addition, they actually tried hard to comply with the 1st amendment by banning all T-shirts carrying political messages!  So you see there was really no INTENT to ban only certain speech.

In practice though, they did not ban people wearing lapel pins, political buttons, and any other items carrying political messsages.  Instead, they unfortunately focused on two people wearing their messages on their Tshirts.

Had they banned everyone wearing any message, or banned only those seeking to call attention to themselves and their message, they would have been correct and in line with the Supreme Court rulings on this.

Cindy Sheehan has already stated she will sue on freedom of speech grounds.  I think she will back off now that the capitol police have admitted they misapplied the law and that they are correcting their procedures.  If it does go to court, there is sufficient reasonable doubt to show any intent to restrict certain speech.  Without intent you don't have criminal actions most of the time.  The apology, corrective actions, and explanation is more than enough to end this issue.

[Forged]

Even more reason why this is a nonissue. They made a mistake, and they apologized for it. The law is open to interpreation, anyway. I think perhaps they should revise the law to make it more clear.

My bet is that the liberal victim in this (Ms. Sheehan) pursues a lawsuit.

I would support a law that didn't allow political propaganda inside the Capitol Building.

Hopefull Sheehan will just back down.

You don't want political propaganda in the capitol building?  If that was a law Bush would not have been able to speak once he entered...

[CrAz3D]

There IS a law about no protesting within the Capitol building.

[Forged]

No one was protesting, she was an invited guest.  She and another guest had on t-shirts that dealt with a heated issue.  If I wore a t-shirt that said 'Support Bread' I would not be protesting anything, I would simply be wearing a t-shirt that pointed out how I felt on the issue of Bread.

[CrAz3D]

And later they were apologized to because it wasn't a protest.
I understand how it could originally be viewed as a protest, though, because the messages on their shirts were political.

[Forged]

I understand the 'no protesting in the capitol building' law.  Makes perfect sense to me, however you said they should make a law against political propaganda too.  That would ensure almost everyone in the house and senate would be arrested anytime they open their mouth.

[CrAz3D]

I didn't say they couldn't debate politics civily...I remember that much.
I don't really recall what I did say about not allowing political propaganda in the Capitol Building, though.

I don't think they should be wearing t-shirts period, any kind, it should be formal dress.  I don't understand why someone would want to show up in a tshirt to listen to the President of the free world.

[Forged]

I don't know where the post you said it in went but I quoted it...

Anyways, I was making a joke about your comment.  Everything most of our officials spew out of their mouth is pure propaganda.

[CrAz3D]

I would support a law that didn't allow political propaganda inside the Capitol Building.

ooops, as I scroll up about 1/2 a page...

I spose it really depends what you define as propaganda.
I would specifically like "advertised positions" (tshirts, etc.) gone.

[Grok]

The main thing is to not restrict "certain speech".  As Americans we should generally understand and support this concept.  Exceptions do exist for true issues of national defense, which does not apply here.

When you allow restriction of certain speech, this turns into a ban on unpopular speech.  The Supreme Court has rightly concluded that you cannot ban speech just because it is unpopular.  If you allow some speech, you must allow all, even unpopular speech.

Wearing messages favoring a political party, for example a lapel pin for the republican/democratic party, is speech.  So the Capitol Police cannot allow that but restrict someone from displaying/wearing a message that opposes those parties.