On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, Dan Minette wrote: > Out of curiosity, what if a group of anti-abortionists were wearing shirts > with anti-abortion slogans on it and coming to the mall every day to talk > to shoppers. No accosting, just asking people if they think that people > have a right to kill their own children, etc.
I think it would depend on degrees of behavior. If they're just wearing their T-shirts while shopping or having lunch, I see no problem. If they are making a daily habit of striking up unsolicited conversations with anybody who comes into earshot, I call that "accosting" for all practical purposes (whether it's harassment would depend on their attitude and persistence). But if it happened just once, and if the individual permitted himself to be blown off, I wouldn't care. If the individual clings or becomes abusive, then I start looking for security [*]. But if we have multiple individuals showing up every day and stopping people to talk about their issue, then it seems to me that we're talking about an organized group activity of some kind. Presumably the mall would have regulations permitting or disallowing such things and would be within its rights to put a stop to the activity or even to support the activity if the owners happened to agree with it (in which case I avoid that particular mall, which isn't a biggie because I avoid malls as a rule anyway). [*] In the t-shirt case I've heard nobody allege that the men were forcing people to have conversations, or that they were getting on soapboxes to speechify, or that they were part of an organized group devoted to doing such things. Nick quoted a police report that mentioned "gatherings" but I can't tell if that's legalese or if people actually were so offended at the shirts that they started gathering around.... Do the dirty looks of a Macy's clerk count as a gathering? Marvin Long Austin, Texas Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Poindexter & Ashcroft, LLP (Formerly the USA) http://www.breakyourchains.org/john_poindexter.htm _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
