I wonder how Cindy Sheehans charges will be justified. If you follow the links, precedent states that merely wearing a Tshirt is not considered protesting. It should be interesting to see how this plays out in the courts.
Side note, Cindy Sheehan was not the only one ejected from the State of the Union adress for clothing reasons, Beverly Young, a Republican Congressmans wife, was ejected for wearing a "support our soldiers" shirt, supposedly for the same reason as Sheehan. When she argued and protested, she was told that this was "exactly how they were treating Sheehan." But it WASN'T! She was asked to cover it, and THEN ejected. She was not forcibly ejected. Or detained for four hours. Or had any charges brought against her for it.
Does this smack of "equality photo-op" to anybody else? "See, we need Cindy out, so we'll make an effort to look like we're doing it to everyone!" And how is it no one who wore purple heart mocking bandaids and purple fingers were ejected for the same "protest" reason during the election?
This picture keeps getting prettier and prettier!
A t-shirt is an expression just like a button or even a lapel pin. Thousands of brave Americans have died for that right and more - including my step-son - are fighting to keep the right of free speech. In America, it is our right and we need to protect that right for ALL Americans - even if we disagree with the comment.
http://www.local6.com/news/6647094/detail.html
They also ejected the wife of a representative, Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores, FL, last night for wearing a t-shirt with a slogan that said, "Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom."
"Young's husband found out about the incident after Bush's speech and called it unacceptable."
From Bradblog:
While neither woman should have been arrested -- or even removed from the gallery (in our opinion) -- they were not treated equally. Whatever the "rules" are about such things in the U.S. Congress, they did not receive "equal treatment under the law". (A law, we might add, which would seem to be unconstitutional, according to this 1971 Supreme Court decision which ruled that wearing a "Fuck the Draft" T-shirt into a courthouse was Constitutionally protected free speech).
Both T-shirts were in support of our troops. Both shirts made a political statement of sorts. One woman was arrested, the other was not.
In fact, the other was not even asked to leave until after the speech had already started. After Sheehan had been arrested and after the authorities knew they had a politically sticky situation on their hands. All of which begs the question of whether Mrs. Young would have been asked to leave the chamber at all, had not Sheehan's arrest occurred previously.
(see link for more)
http://www.bradblog.com/
It struck me similiarly, as though they knew once Cindy was in trouble, they wouldn't be able to get away with a blatant inequality(ie Mrs. Youngs continued prescence wearing the shirt).
Late Nite FDL: Let Us All Now Listen to Digby
This afternoon the AP had a few cooperative words on the Sheehan arrest:
Sheehan's T-shirt alluded to the number of soldiers killed in Iraq: "2245 Dead. How many more?" . . .
Young's shirt had just the opposite message: "Support the Troops  Defending Our Freedom."
Glenn Greenwald (and others from the comments) were on this earlier, and Glenn emailed the article's author, Laurie Kellman. I feel like the friggin' revision police these days, but I just went back to the article for the link I found that it had been changed. It now reads:
Young's shirt had this message: "Support the Troops  Defending Our Freedom."
Nobody wants to be the next Deborah Howell. Score one for the team.
But it's amazing what a bunch of trained monkeys the press have become, so effortlessly repeating right-wing talking points that they truly seem to have internalized them and made them their own. Peter Daou and Steve Benen have begun to chronicle the frequency with which this happens and it's quite something to behold when you see it all lumped together in one spot. The words "steaming pile" come to mind.
http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_01_29_firedoglake_archive.html#113885900482892768
http://www.firedoglake.blogspot.com/
To my knowledge, the Supreme Court ruled that wearing the jacket that said "Fuck the Draft" was not a criminal offense. It never ruled that the person could not have been removed from the courthouse... simply that the mere act of displaying the words on his jacket wasn't in itself a criminal offense. That supports your argument that Sheehan shouldn't have been arrested, but not that she shouldn't have been removed.
Yes, but they didn't escort her out, nor did they arrest any other "protesters" for their shirts. The removal would have been legal, although bad publicity.
Unequal treatment under the law.
Cindy Sheehan was degraded, and led out with her hands handcuffed behind her back.
She triumphed last night, tho, in my opinion.
She is my Rosa Parks.
Cindy looks so thin and so sad. But she is doing what she knows she must do, because it is the right thing to do, and to do anything else to her would be not taking responsibility and doing something with the truth and knowledge that she has about what is really happening and why regarding America's addiction to war.
I say, on behalf of mother's everywhere, thank you, Cindy!
I have only one thing (well, two) to say to Cindy --
You GO, girl! Keep on keepin' on!
Some people take what's written on the T-shirt seriously. Like one of my friend's friend was forced to take off his T-shirt by the police. Why? Because on his T-shirt, it says "Bush is the real terrorist"...think about it..T-shirt is now just a form of protest...so yea, people just take it too far.
When it gets that far, society has just become a dictatorship run off of fear. That scares me.
media falsely equating sheehan/young at sotu
by skippy [Subscribe]
Fri Feb 03, 2006 at 08:40:19 AM PDT
as we pointed out the other day, the spinmeisters are working overtime to put a "fair and balanced" patina on the arrest of cindy sheehan compared to the polite ejection of mrs. beverly "then you are an idiot, copper" young from the capitol chamber minutes before the snooze of the union speech on tuesday.
we mentioned that we heard squeaky abrams on the abrams report compare the two events as if they were both equally ridiculous and obstrusive to the women's freedoms. we now have squeaky's transcript, and it's even worse than we remembered.
more after the jump.
skippy's diary :: ::
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/3/104019/6259#6
(more at link)
I hate the spin that it was "equal" treatment for both women. It seems perfectly obvious, I wonder how people can even believe it.
The links confuse me. What do they have to do with the issue?
--Mike
Is a t-shirt a protest? Well in my bf's school it was. Some gay guys were able to wear a shirt that said GAY PRIDE on it. Well some other people made shirts that said STRAIGHT PRIDE. Well those kids had to turn the shirts inside out and they got detention.
According to Jamin Raskin, the supreme court has ruled that the school has the right to ban any t'shirt that is disruptive to education. In a landmark ruling, some students who wore black armbands to school from the Vietnam era sued using their rights to freedom of speech.
So it went up the court process and the Supreme court ruled that the arm bands were not disruptive towards the educational process and therefore were allowed and the school did in fact violate their freedom of speech.
The name of the case was Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School District
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=393&invol=503
The book by Jamin Raskin called We the Students is a wonderful resource for students. I highly recommend it. http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=65-1568027982-1
that is very interesting. Thanks for the book recommendation. I'm always looking for something good to read.
You're welcome.
It's an easy and interesting read and relevant for h.s. and college students.
hey if naked can be a protest so can being dressed
THere is a difference in laws... People who protest naked are not arrested for the PROTEST, but for "indecency" and other such laws designed to protect children. Obviously clothes have no such things, especially as its already been ruled that vulgar sayings on clothes are protected as freedom of speech.
Actually, public obscenity is a crime in most states.
I think the American fear of sexuality is a bit ridiculous. Maybe I should blog that one.
--Mike
public obscfenity is a crime-but shirts dont count as public obscenity, according to our court precedent. And yes, our puritan fear of sexuality is agreat topic!
things have changed havent they. I remember wereing a shirt that had the California flag on it but the bears were "doing it" and i was never arrested...if thats not obscene i dont know what is...what is the legal definition of obscene if its not clearly defined and the definition is not subjective then the law is out
Clothing does NOT count as obscenity... we'vge seen that in numerous lawsuits, that went in favor of the person wearing the "obscene" garment.
would it have been if they just took the shirt of right then and there and asked if that was obscene....i would have laughed and turned off the tv