Criminalizing Peaceful Protest

If American Democracy stands for anything, it stands for the right to peacefully protest without fear of government interference.

Stop laughing. They used to teach that in school.

Brad Friedman:

Here's a woman who was offering her thoughts to a Texas state legislative committee yesterday about their radical new anti-abortion bill they are trying to slam down Democrats' and citizens' throats. The woman's comments, apparently, became no longer to the liking of the committee chair at some point, and so she was ordered hauled away by the cops.

And in Indiana, if you don't hate gay marriage, you get no rights at all. From Zandar:

So yeah, the same guys screaming about personal liberty over data monitoring, free speech issues and "the chilling effect" of the Obama administration's war on leaks, and how Obamacare's birth control rules are an attack on religious freedom have zero problem actually putting you in jail for a year an a half and will take your right to vote over your protest for equality.

That's what real, actual totalitarian, police state thugs do to people, make up laws simply to throw people in jail because they disagree with you over something so petty and inhumane in the first place that inequality becomes legal grounds for persecution of a class of citizens.

That's what real religious persecution looks like, tossing clergy in jail for acknowledging two people of the same sex can have love before whatever higher power they believe in. Providing low-cost birth control is not religious persecution, morons. Throwing people in jail because they say "I believe you two love each other and I recognize that" is.