The world we leave our children -Reply

[Marie A. Failinger]

We should have such a problem, that people will care enough about our
public life to litter the courthouse lawns with their unattended
displays!  At least we would know that democracy is alive and well!
And that might encourage each of us to be more involved as well!  One
problem with the total ban regime is that it encourages only those with
"outsider" views who are willing to defy the authorities to speak (or
those so clueless that they don't understand they shouldn't), thus sending
the message that certain public places are communication vehicles only for
the outrageous.

Why not encourage speech along the lines of Vance Koven's remarks, using
TPM to afford equal opportunity to speakers through size, durability, and
time restrictions, and avoid "state speech" except where necessary for
significant community symbolic needs (i.e., commemorating heroines,
disasters, etc.)?  When we get speech back into the public
square--literally--then we can be worried about having too much of it, or
how it might offend our eyes (rising above the current offenses, including
poorly designed buildings, litter, etc., etc.)

And why not a "disclaimer" that does more than disclaim:
     We welcome the speech of all; but we endorse the views of none.

The "attended" KKK sign, it seems to me, is no different--if the symbolic
message sent by "attendance" is sufficiently dangerous, it will be covered
by existing doctrines, such as fighting words, incitement, etc.

Marie Failinger
Hamline University Law School
mfailing at piper.hamline.edu

 >
> I wasn't calling for the suppression of speech. But I think it is
> reasonable for the government to say "we don't want the courthouse
> lawn to be littered with anybody's and everybody's unattended
> displays." It is better to completely close a forum than to
> selectively close it to exclude, say, only religious displays.
> --
>                    ----------
>              Rick Duncan (rduncan at unlinfo.unl.edu)
>