"Woman's loud praise -- and curses -- lead to charges" June 8, 2012
BRISTOL, Tenn.—A Tennessee woman says she was just praising the Lord, although at high volume, when she received a citation accusing her of violating the city's noise ordinance.
Hallelujah!
She later was arrested by police on a disorderly conduct charge.
Drunk?
Fifty-four-year-old Betty Jones tells WCYB-TV that her routine every Sunday includes five hours of praising and dancing, while she listens to music by Johnny Cash, Randy Travis, Alan Jackson and The Judds.
Yeah, you gotta turn that s*** down.
Got any Dixie Chicks?
But neighbors in Bristol complained about loud music, so police showed up on May 27, a Sunday. A police report says officers helped her lower her stereo's base and warned her. But officers say they came back less than two hours later being called again.
This, time they cited her under the city's noise ordinance, and Jones tells the station she gave the officers a message too.
"Randy Travis was singing `I'm going home to pray to God tonight and hopefully he'll forgive my sins.' I looked at that officer and said `you better go home tonight and pray for your sins because that's what Randy is telling you," she said. "That's the gospel truth. Randy Travis told that man to go home and pray."
After more neighborhood complaints, officers went back May 28 and arrested Jones after she concedes that she was "going off and cussing." Still, she says she should have the right to praise God in her own home.
Well, you can't smoke there, so....
She was charged with disorderly conduct and violating the noise ordinance. She spent the night in jail....
Singing the Jailhouse Rock?
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Maybe we aren't so different from each other after all, Tennessee:
"Middleborough profanity ban touches a nerve" by Billy Baker | Globe Staff, June 13, 2012
MIDDLEBOROUGH - On the first morning that swearing in public became a civil offense in Middleborough, Corey Mills said he heard more swears than he has ever heard in his life. He was answering the telephone at the police station, where he is a sergeant.
You gotta be f***ing kidding!
This is a small town, but the calls were coming from far and wide, for the previous night at its annual town meeting, the residents had overwhelmingly voted to give police the opportunity to hand out $20 tickets for using profanity in public. One angry veteran came into the station to argue that he had fought to defend his right to swear; he had to be shown the door.
Yes, he did fight for that and the town and cops just disrespected that sacrifice.
On the recommendation of the police chief, who was looking for a set of tools to cope with crowds of unruly teenagers who gathered downtown at night, the citizens of Middleborough voted 183-50 to decriminalize a bylaw against profanity in public. The law had been on the books since 1968 but not used in years because it wasn’t considered worth prosecuting. Decriminalizing effectively revived the law, giving police power to hand out $20 tickets without worrying about bringing a criminal case to court.
Did you just catch a whiff of fascism, reader?
On the downtown drag of Centre Street the following afternoon, some of the youths who hang there, and who are a target of the ordinance, punctuated their feelings with vehement oaths. One thought it was [expletive]. Another thought it was [expletive expletive]. A car drove by and a young woman yelled out the window, “Is it illegal to say [expletive]?’’
It was a fair question, and one whose answer, according to freedom of speech specialists, is probably no.
David Hudson, a scholar at the First Amendment Center, said he expects the constitutionality of the ordinance will be challenged, and that the law will be invalidated.
“Profanity is protected unless it is fighting words, true threats, or incitement to eminent lawless action. Those are narrow definitions,’’ he said. Otherwise, “one man’s vulgarity is another man’s lyric.’’
:-)
Hudson said anti-profanity laws are common around the country but that most were enacted decades ago and now are rarely, if ever, enforced.
Middleborough police say they are fully expecting a challenge to the law - but that in the meantime it will be enforced....
Thanks for WASTING TAXPAYER MONEY in COURT, cops!
At a Cumberland Farms that has been mentioned again and again as a place where some mouths need to be rinsed with soap, Robert Guthrie, 62, said the law crosses “the fine line of independence.’’
Why? Did they tell lies that led to the mass-murder of millions in wars?
But he said he had voted for it just the same, because it was a town where the youths didn’t have a lot of places to go, and got very boisterous. The law gives police an opportunity to send a signal to such crowds without taking more drastic action, like arrests.
Here's a silent signal for you. Is that illegal, too?
Judy Croken said she has worked at the convenience store for 14 years and been called things “that I knew existed but I’d never heard vocalized.’’
“You hear it from kids in their 20s down to little kids so small you’re horrified listening to them,’’ she said.
Croken, however, did not see the threat of fines having any effect on the youth downtown. And the youth downtown agreed with her.
“Do they think this is going to stop us from swearing?’’ 19-year-old Arianna Menissian asked. “I think it would take me a couple hundred dollars.’’
She and her friends were planning to ask a police officer to name the words they weren’t allowed to say.
I'll bet I know which ones they are.
Many of the teens said that bicycle police were already following them when they were downtown. “I just moved here from Raynham, and I hate it,’’ said 16-year-old Betsy Hathaway. “They stalk us.’’
Must have no robberies or rapes to solve.
Just then, a 21-year-old man with dreadlocks named Jeremy Haber pulled up in a beat-up Mazda Miata convertible. He had another question.
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But don't you kids mind those looting [expletive] banks.
