Judge rules for abortion protesters

[kpete]

Judge rules for abortion protesters
Rules clinic can't have protest buffer, even though protesters set clinic on fire.
http://www.rawstory.com/
Judge overturns West Palm's clinic buffer law

By Thomas Collins
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 18, 2006

WEST PALM BEACH — A federal judge has ruled that a city law imposing a buffer zone on abortion protesters violates free-speech rights and has ordered the city not to enforce it.

The law — enacted in October after someone set fire to the Presidential Women's Center, the last clinic in Palm Beach County where abortions are done — created a 20-foot buffer around entrances and other public areas outside health-care facilities.

U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks ruled that the city didn't prove the existence of problems that it said the law addressed: restricted patient access and a threat to public safety. Even if it had, the law is too strict, he ruled.

"Freedom of speech is rarely an issue when everyone agrees," Middlebrooks wrote. "Perhaps more than at any other place and any other time, in cases such as this, speech guaranteed by the First Amendment must be protected."

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/local_news/epaper/2006/04/18/s1a_buffer_0418.html

[kevinbgoode]

1. Well, so much for those state laws against Phelps protesting

then. . .this can be cited by Fred Phelps as a defense of his right to free speech at the funerals of soldiers.

[kevinbgoode]

3. It isn't going unnoticed, meanwhile

that "activist" judges are always ruling for the right of christo-fascist groups to harass or block others, or interfere with public gatherings in the name of "free speech" but then rule against others doing it back to christo-fascist groups.

[4_TN_TITANS]

2. How about the miles worth

of buffers to protect the wittle prez from protesters???

[SoCalDem]

4. "...speech guaranteed by the First Amendment must be protected."

I see that as NO MORE FIRST AMENDMENT HOLDING PENS for political protest.. :)

[Warpy]

5. So when are we going to get rid of "free speech" gulags in

towns where Stupid is speaking? When is our POLITICAL free speech going to be protected.

Oh, don't answer that. We all know what the answer is.

[DanCa]

6. We should start protesting the fundie churchies.

Hey it's in their playbook isn't it? An eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth. I am tired of playing nice with fundies of any kind.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. Then how can Dim Son's 'Free Speech Zones' be legal? Let's file

a lawsuit in federal court!