As recounted in a previous post, the City of Orlando has made it a crime with penalties including incareration for panhandling on city streets if done outside of restricted areas, measured in a few square feet and bounded by blue paint.
This amounts to a patently unconstitutional violation of free speech in a public forum and protected by the first amendment to the Constitution.
From the syllabus to the USSC decision: "1. An airport terminal operated by a public authority is a non-public forum, and thus a ban on solicitation need only satisfy a reasonableness standard. Pp. 677-683.
(a) The extent to which the Port Authority can restrict expressive activity on its property depends on the nature of the forum. Regulation of traditional public fora or designated public fora survives only if it is narrowly drawn to achieve a compelling state interest, but limitations on expressive activity conducted on any other government-owned property need only be reasonable to survive. Perry Education Assn. v. Perry Local Educators' Assn., 460 U.S. 37, 45, 46. Pp. 677-679."
(emphasis added)
Public sidewalks by definition have to receive consideration as public forums thus protecting people exercising their right to free speech by asking for $.
For Jesus' sake people, feed the hungry.
[For you have been a refuge to the poor,
a refuge to the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the rainstorm
and a shade from the heat.
- Isaiah 25:4]
[There is no dispute that the Hare Krishnas' activities are protected by the First Amendment. Rather, the constitutional dispute is over the character of the airport itself.
If an area is not a "public forum," the Government is not constitutionally obliged to accommodate speech or other activities that would have full constitutional protection on a street corner, for example.] Emphasis added
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/11/nyregion/supreme-court-to-review-soliciting-at-3-big-airports.html
No comments:
Post a Comment