Judge Rules Woman Is Allowed To Flip Off Neighbors With Xmas Lights For Now
from the and-a-happy-screw-you dept
As I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before, I am exceptionally comfortable with profanity, and believe it's a form of free speech that should be protected. The right to say words does not end because of the interpretation of those words by someone else. That's why I cheered on Tim Cushing's piece on an SVSU student who used a vulgar poster to give his school just enough rope to hang itself from the irony rafters. There are certain situations that require use of vulgar words or gestures as a release, or even as the proper descriptive expression. For instance, let's say your neighbors are acting like enormous anuses while you're setting up your Christmas lights; what's the proper way to tell them what you think of them?Well, if you answered "craft my Christmas lights into a giant middle finger pointed at my neighbors house", then give yourself a pat on the back because a court recently ruled that doing so didn't violate any laws and is protected free speech.
A district court judge rule this week that a Louisiana woman could hang her Christmas lights in the shape of a middle finger, as a nasty holiday “greeting” to her neighbors. Police initially threatened to arrest Sarah Childs for her illuminated display, but with the help of the ACLU, Child won her suit against the city.
That Mediaite summary is slightly exaggerated, because she didn't quite "win" the lawsuit yet. The judge just granted a temporary restraining order prohibiting police from stopping the display, with a full hearing to take place in the New Year. However, the judge does say it's likely that she's going to win:
The Court finds that Defendants' continued efforts to prevent Plaintiff from displaying her holiday lights will result in an infringement of Plaintiff's rights of free speech and due process, and that the Plaintiff has demonstrated a likelihood of succeeding in her argument that this infringement is impermissable under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.Yes, this woman, who is my new personal hero, actually took this case to court because she really wanted to flip off her neighbors in the most festive manner possible. The story goes mostly as you'd expect. Childs put the lights up, was threatened with arrest, took them down...and then decided that arrest was worth it so she put up the giant glowing "bird" once more. The police showed up again, this time threatening to arrest Childs for violating the Denham Springs obscentity statute, which is a pretty ballsy threat considering the city doesn't even have an obscentity statute. That's where this gets really fun.
After she contacted the local ACLU for help with a lawsuit, the city officers issued her two unrelated tickets that attorneys call a “collateral attack”: one for obstructing the flow of traffic as she was walking down the street and another for disturbing the peace while singing a song about her fight with neighbors in her driveway.An entire song about her fight with her neighbors, and she decided to sing it to them? My lord, if I were single I'd hunt this wonderful woman down so that we could spend a lovely weekend together cursing at nuns or something. In any case, the court ruled in her favor on free speech and due process violations, pending a full hearing in January, well after the holiday season.
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Filed Under: christmas lights, free speech, louisiana, middle finger, obscenity
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Unfortunately, small-town cops back home tended to be power-mad pricks... Making up obscenity statutes seems about par for the course.
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I'm surprised they didn't try to come up with a bogus felony just to spitefully put her in jail temporarily.
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DOJ
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There wouldn't have been a light display at all.
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And other people have a right to speak, sing or express in lights what a prick they are.
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a.) wholeheartedly apologize, or
b.) shut the hell up and take your punishment.
Taking the "legal" route only proves you're still a child, one who runs and tattles when the people you treat horribly start fighting back.
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(I consider insulting people to be an art-form. The better crafted your insult, the more my admiration of you increases).
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(I consider insulting people to be an art-form. The better crafted your insult, the more my admiration of you increases)."
I completely agree with your entire post and feel the same. If you do a great job, well... [tips hat in your direction].
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Missing Option
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The more somebody tries to harm you the more you should just improve your life, why waste time and energy to display such nasty message and on a day that is supposed to be about letting it go.
Please note that I do understand perfectly how people can be nasty to each other, I did it a lot when I was younger, I just don't see the point.
When you start getting paranoid and trying the "pay back" is the time the other side won already.
Aside from that public nastiness is public it doesn't target only the object of your disaffect it also targets others who may be or not as bad or even deserve such things, like the classic neibourgs loud sound noises dispute where one guy who gets tired of what his perceive as the noise neighbor and start making noise too, it affects everybody good or bad.
Most probably both parties are nasty people,
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Speaking of Holiday Displays...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/12/ditto-christmas-lights-display-arizona_n_228379 6.html
She has to being doing something illegal since she is "cashing in" on the "sweat of the brow" of her neighbors, right? Isn't that how it works AJ?
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We don't handle rudeness very well.
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In a way, funny
There are no sidewalks in her neighborhood. In fact, most of the town has no sidewalks. So, everyone who walks around town "obstructs" traffic.
One can only hope that the ACLU is awarded legal fees.
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Profanity and Speech
It is an "earthy" form of speech and can have its place. However, these days it has lost much of its power because it is becoming the normal mode of speech.
Some years ago, a couple of academics here in Australia looked at the use of profanity and expletives in the common tongue. They found it was used at all levels. They came to a conclusion that I have since though much about which is that (at least here in this country) it is a form of stuttering. Using profanity verbally appears to have either arisen because we have slowed down our thinking processes or is slowing down our thinking processes.
Since that time, I have noticed a tendency for people to not be able to think quickly on their feet (particularly those whose speech patterns include much profanity).
I remember one of our mates at uni who was known to never swear and never utter an expletive who one day let a single word drop. It stunned us all and we knew something extremely important had happened. We stood up and took notice.
People will use profanity and some people have no other means of communicating. I can't say I find it pleasant to listen to since most of it is utterly pointless anyway and gets in the road of communication. If you like it is the noise on any communication channel - just straight out annoying.
But I look at it this way, if we start to arrest people for profanity or legislate it away, new forms will takes its place - simply witness the blasphemy laws in England in the 16th and 17th century - new words were coined to blaspheme and get around the laws put in place.
People make their choices about everything, whether to be offended with what someone says or does to retaliating for perceived offences. But in the end, you will reap what you sow, good or bad.
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I still wouldn't talk to her in the streets though, but I am happy that her rights and by proxy my own are being upheld.
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filthy talk
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Re: filthy talk
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profanity
Grow up, woman!
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profanity
Grow up, woman!
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I second Tim, if I were single I'd be chasing her. Actually, I'm planning to give my neighbors a dog 'shirt' with a big middle finger. You know, dog + apartment + family leaving the dog alone all day = a lot of annoyance and barking.
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Thanks for posting :)
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