Assembly Bill 123 Cripples 1st Amendment

[ilbegone]

I visited the bio ethical website, it does indeed display disturbing images.

It would be easy to to get caught up in justification for 123. For example,

"There are some realities which can not be adequately communicated with words alone," he said. "Students who are old enough to have an abortion are old enough to see an abortion."

By that reasoning, "children who are old enough to have sex are old enough to view porn".



However, how did a lone incident in 2003 by a knucklehead fringe group (I am reminded of the eco-terrorist group ELF) become justification for something as broadly written as 123?

It certainly disturbed some children, but how did the actions of the group on that day threaten immediate physical harm to children? In fact, it may have been the other way around:

Assistant Principal Art Roberts told the trial court that he saw several children who appeared to be angered by the images and that he had to discourage a group of boys from throwing rocks at the truck.

So, if - in the interest of equal representation and diversity as well as accuracy in education - there were a mobile billboard set up across the street from a school protesting a large mural purporting to depict a visual history of California painted on the gymnasium wall which only shows people who have a central Mexican physical appearance, and some kids threw rocks at it, would that be considered as threatening the safety of children and prohibited under proposed bill 123?

[Ayatollahgondola]

The three-judge panel also ruled that the individual deputies and school officials could not be held liable for the 1st Amendment violations, though the panel found that the deputies wrongly detained the activists for 75 minutes.

"A reasonable officer in the deputies' situation could believe that their actions were lawful," said Jennifer Lehman, a lawyer in the county counsel's office.

This is one of the byproducts that concerns me. The court cited a heckler's veto of free speech. A 75 minute detainment is a government veto of your 4th amendment rights when you consider that many 1st amendment activities are only 1 or two hours. Think about how many of SOS's past events were planned for that time span, and if the police hold you up for half of that because the law as stated seems violated, your 1st amendment has successfully been infringed, and the court is saying there's no foul.