TRI In The News
Street Preachers
From The Virginia Gazette
Original article available here
Banning the obnoxious street preachers is desirable, but it’s fraught with legal and public relations problems.
The idea of soapbox zones flanking Merchants Square has considerable merit because the religious and political rants over the years are disruptive to shoppers and outdoor diners. No one begrudges free speech, but it comes with responsibilities.
Libertarians are appalled that free speech would be limited in Colonial Williamsburg, of all places.
A blog comment at vagazette.com summed up the situation well. “It makes me uncomfortable to walk near these people. I don’t go to CW to be judged. That is exactly what they are doing.”
Or as Mary Ellen Power of the Fat Canary restaurant put it: “They are just the opposite of the open-hearted, generous people I would think would be talking about religion. They are very mean-spirited and self-righteous. They make derogatory comments about women and minorities.”
They are also very loud. The preachers who show up 35-45 times a year have booming voices that hardly need bullhorns. The city can stipulate the need for a permit to use amplification, and then deny the permit. It may take a combination of tightening the noise ordinance and expanding the definition of “disturbing the peace” to tweak the existing regs. But if he’s not holding a bullhorn, it’s pretty hard to legally make a guy pipe down.
Any new ordinance would have to narrowly define “public demonstration” to avoid overreacting. Otherwise the Rutherford Institute or ACLU would file a First Amendment suit that would lavish unwanted publicity on the colonial town where free speech gained a foothold. The media in New York, Philadelphia and Washington would have a field day with the perceived duplicity. The time and money defending such a suit would be a burden as well.
An easy solution would be for the city to lease the length of Duke of Gloucester to Colonial Williamsburg for a dollar, which would then give the Goodwin Building the legal right to protect the quiet and enjoyment of their merchants and customers. But the demonstrators could simply move 10 feet off the corner at Boundary or Henry and keep ranting. Besides, this would appear a heavy-handed bureaucratic ploy. Regardless, Colonial Williamsburg does not want the preachers extending down Duke of Gloucester into the Historic Area.
So how to find a practical model of limits that will not be so broad as to be thrown out of court? The Jack Tuttle model is evolving into two zones. One is in front of the Bruton Parish gift shop, which will not amuse the store. The other is at the corner of the Sorority Garden at College Corner. A real soapbox should be installed to reflect the symbolism and practicality of free speech.
Again, Mary Ellen Power: “We are inclusive of everyone. We want everyone to be able to enjoy Merchants Square.” The city could learn from the college’s experience, where a “free speech zone” was set up years ago at Crim Dell.
Soapbox rants are confined to a spot in Hyde Park, London, where the concept was pioneered. Other venues have similar guidelines. City civic leader Sharon Scruggs sent Tuttle a photo of a National Park Service sign at Muir Woods, outside San Francisco, reprinted above.
“It was especially timely for me,” she related, “as only weeks before I was attending the 4 o’clock Christmas Eve service at Bruton Parish when one of these street preachers stood on his soapbox right outside the church and starting screaming that we were all damned to hell. It was not only disruptive, it transformed what has always been a spiritual family tradition into a feeling of anger and frustration that someone could steal from us a time that we value together as a family once a year.”
Amen to that.
