Sheehan Not Alone

By now you have surely heard that Cindy Sheehan was arrested at  last night's State of the Union speech. Sheehan was wearing a T-shirt with a slogan protesting the war in Iraq.

Beverly Young, the wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Florida) was also removed from the gallery because she was wearing a T-shirt that read, "Support the Troops - Defending Our Freedom."

Young chairs the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee.

Any and all kinds of sloganeering or demonstrating is strictly forbidden in the Capitol. The fact that both Sheehan and Young were expelled proves enforcement of the prohibition against demonstrating passes constitutional muster because it is content-neutral. There was no censorship on the basis of the message.

UPDATE: Capitol Police Apologize, Drop Charge against Sheehan. Chief Terrance Gainer said, "[t]he officers made a good faith, but mistaken effort to enforce an old unwritten interpretation of the prohibitions about demonstrating in the Capitol."   

Comments

[KipEsquire]

You don't even have to go as far as "content-neutral" analysis. Not all government property is a public forum or even a "limited public forum." And the SOTU Address is not a public event; it is by invitation only. So any rational restriction (e.g., a dress code) is prefectly permissible.

I also think that Sheehan, posting at Kos, condemns the accounts of the incident by the "biased" media. Heh.