Wednesday, February 23, 2011

And the real criminal got away

A Delaware theater was showing a movie that had a great appeal to minorities and had large crowds attending.
It had recently suffered a robbery and had increased security.
It had a policy of checking tickets more closely during sell outs.
The theater manager personally made an announcement telling the patrons they needed keep quite and insure their cell phones were off, even though the pre-movie screen show also provided the warning.
Juana Fuentes-Bowles, then director of the state's Human Relations Division was in the theater that night.
she stood up, announced that she was offended and proceeded to take names and numbers of patrons in order to organize a complaint against the theater.
An initial investigation and hearing by the state Human Relations Commission fined the theater and charged them with violating the equal accommodations law.
The state supreme court reversed the decision and stated that the commission erred in its findings and failed to explain their reasoning for them in the first place.
Juana (who left her position with the state) could not be reached for comment.

It seems to me that yelling "Fire!" in a theater is not the only speech that should be restricted.

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