...the rules depend on the days of the week.
Remember when "dissent was patriotic"?
Remember when Occupy Wall Street actually occupied federal property for months?
Well, now, as opposed to last month, if you kneel and pray in front of the White House in protest of the freedom of conscience destroying HHS mandate, you get arrested pronto if not sooner.
Six pro-life activists, including one Catholic priest, were arrested this morning in front of the White House while holding a peaceful prayer vigil in protest against the Obama administration’s birth control mandate. They were released shortly thereafter, after paying a $100 fine.
Fr. Denis Wilde, the Associate Director of Priests for Life, told LifeSiteNews that by their arrests the protesters hoped to send a “wake-up call” to President Obama that opposition to his mandate is not going away.
The six were arrested on a charge of “disobeying a lawful order.” The priest explained that while it is legal to hold protests in front of the White House, protesters are not allowed to remain stationary, including if they kneel down and pray.
“Occupy Wall Street protesters have been occupying federal property for months, but when we kneel in prayer, the police are called in and we are arrested,” Father Wilde said. “We knew that was the risk when we gathered today, and we will do it again regardless of the risk. What people of faith – of every faith – need to do now is stand with us.”
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4 comments:
Were those arrests even Constitutional?
It depends.
The police are permitted to exericise their "police powers" to protect public order as to "time, place and manner" restrictions on public demonstrations and speech. Presumably, blocking traffic would fall within a "time, place and manner" restriction.
However, the police are not permitted to use their powers to discriminate against particular messages or viewpoints. If there is evidence that the police in this situation have permitted other demonstrators to stop moving, then that would be evidence of viewpoint discrimination. Hence, the reference to the failure to prosecute Occupy is some evidence that maybe there was viewpoint discrimination, albeit that may be a weak form of evidence since those situations may be distinguishable, but that isn't entirely clear to me.
I'll guess that those demonstrators who were kneeling in prayer in front of the White House weren't disrupting anything except Obama's peace of mind.
A couple of muslims could have been howling and bowing up a storm under the Obama's bedroom window and there would have been no arrests. I guarantee it.
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