Sometimes God whispers to our hearts in different ways. Sometimes, like for you, it's the quiet touch. But sometimes, for other's of us, it takes a shout, or a slap in the face before we are ready to listen.
Posted on 12/05/2007 6:33:29 AM PST by Nextrush
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP)-A suburban Atlanta prosecutor has dropped a disorderly conduct charge against an anti-abortion activist who was arrested for driving a truck emblazoned with images of aborted fetuses....
Police had arrested Robert Dean Roethlisberger Jr. 44, of Missouri near the Mall of Georgia the day after Thanksgiving when he refused to remove images on a "Truth Truck," owned by Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group. Police, who said the images were "obscene and vulgar", also impounded the truck and removed the banners.
In an e-mail Monday to the Gwinnett Daily Post, Szabo (County Solicitor) said, "To ensure no abridgement of constitutional rights, application of this statute must neccessarily be narrow and limited...I have reviewed the evidence and law in this case and concluded the physical display of the images in question-as shocking and offensive as they are-does not constitute 'obscene and vulgar or profane language' as specifically prohibited by this statute."
Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said the decision vindicates Roethlisberger and condemns the police officer "who so aggressively violated our constitutional rights." He said the organization is considering a lawsuit.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
The preacher and his float here led to federal lawsuits.
His constitutional rights were violated twice according to a federal judge?
Gwinnett is in hot water on this one.
Additional background from this link:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/nov/07112707.html
Wasnt that the whole point of putting the images on the truck?
The first time I happened to pick up a pamphlet from the Save A Life organization, it felt like a gut punch. I understand why such graphic images are used, yet I felt it further degraded that tiny human life.
If more people were subjected to these horrific images it probably would be easier to overturn R v W
My wife got stuck in traffic with our five kids by one of these displays. She was pissed.
The truth is ugly, that is for certain.
We had those trucks driving around here a couple of years ago and an article with pictures of the truck in a local Christian weekly.
My son picked up the paper and saw the pictures, before I even knew they were in there, and asked about the “broken baby”. He, knowing nothing about abortion, knew that it was horrible.
We didn’t get into too much detail, but we had a discussion about abortion. He was sad for the baby.
The holocaust in Germany happened behind walls.
The German people pled ignorance.
But Ike made them look.
That’s my dilemma.
But I will say that attitudes like Barbara Boxer’s when she objected to graphic depictions of Partial Birth Abortion during Senate debate help to settle the issue.
I’m sort of glad graphic images are displayed if only to shake us out of lethargy about the destruction of the innocent.
The pro-abortion crowd wants to censor the pictures.
Liberal politicians in York,PA (the area where I live) went after this preacher (I admit with some public opinion on the liberals side) and came out the losers in federal court.
There are First Amendment rights and once we say this is too graphic and has to be banned then where does it stop.
Are Passion Play’s going to be graphic if they depict the crucifixion in a grisly manner.
Showing that crap to my kids is not going to get R v W overturned. It will, however, give my kids nightmares.
Some of these cable “reality”-type shows will put on all sorts of medical procedures as, I guess, some kind of “educational entertainment”. but never an abortion. Gee, I wonder why?
There are two things the modern media won’t show: The actual reality of abortion, and an articulate black conservative.
Of course it won't.
But the pictures weren't put there for your kids.
I would submit that what ultimately and utterly degrades that tiny human life is the widespread propaganda that it is not a human life at all, just a worthless clump of cells to be scraped away and washed down a garbage disposal.
If the graphic display of the sacrifice of that tiny human life to the gods of convenience and expediency changes hearts and minds such that this slaughter can be curtailed, if it influences a single pregnant teen to doubt the lies she was told by the abortion industry and spare the life of her child, then isn't it worth some inconvenience and discomfort?
You can't be serious. Don't you think driving a truck around with 10'x12' pictures on it is going to put these pictures in front of kids?
I direct you to colinhester's post for reference.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1935002/posts?page=6#6
Sure...Let em kill those kids...as long as your family can hide their eyes and pretend it is not happening.
Out of sight out of mind. Huh?
*****
Your feelings are legitimate and quite normal....
BUT....
Your legitimate and responsive emotions DO NOT NEGATE THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS to free expression (including display)
I think/hope the Gwinnetians will have to PAY THROUGH THE NOSE....
And well they should....
If we let any government agency or entity over-rule our rights -- in spite of objectionable content-- it's only a matter of time....
Of course it may put them in front of your kids, but they weren't put there FOR your kids, they were put there to influence OTHER people.
Speaking from personal experience, many years ago I was apathetic, intellectually lazy, and indifferent to this issue. Pictures of this type were precisely the shock that I needed to start thinking about the realities of this matter and started me on the intellectual journey that led to my current unabashedly pro-life views. The pro-death, pro-abort movement relies on ignorance and suppression of the truth to keep people indifferent and confused. I recall one particularly graphic image that I'll never be able to forget, andif nothing else, that child's life was not without purpose for having changed my heart.
I wouldn't take pre-teen kids to see Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ, and I wouldn't put pictures from Auschwitz, Hiroshima, or Jeffrey Dahamer's basement on the sides of a truck and drive it around town.
I would be deeply concerned about two possibilities: one, that the kids would be shocked and horrified; and two, that eventually they wouldn't be.
I'll try and remember and appreciate your position when the peace crowd starts driving a truck around showing the mutilated bodies of American soldiers. That's constitutionally protected, right? Plus, it might have the added benefit of accomplishing their goal of getting the troops out of Iraq. Hooray!
Constitutionally protected speech not withstanding, Operation Rescue operates that truck in defiance of good decorum. It does more harm than good. I may be pro-life, but that truck makes me anti-Operation Rescue.
Thank you. That was very well said.
Just curious. Was she pissed about the kids seeing this horror, pissed about the butchery, or pissed about the people that have no clue and don't want to know what is happening.
I don't agree with all of their tactics...
Or all of their gruesome displays...
But I will defend their RIGHTS all day and all night long...
I did see the "dropped case" press release...
Their should be some expensive and punitive action in order to preclude the GCPD from doing this again without penalties..
Fear not....
When the federal lawsuit is served...
The county's liability insurance carrier will grab the ball... settle... and tell the commissioners to insure this never happanes again!
Actually, T.
Some of the tax money you have already paid will now be well spent on the insurance premiums that bring this to closure.
Yes....
the peace crowd's [fictitious] truck would also be protected speech.
I might diasgree or even despise their message and images...
But I would never advocate the taking of their rights to have their say...
If the Operation rescue event happened in my little suburban county...
I would be tearing them a new one for being stupid and allowing the LEO's to abridge these rights...
It's all about the preservation of our rights and way of life!
I hope... that you hope....
Heads should roll before this is finished... up yonder...
Have a good one...
That settles it, then; have some business cards printed up and become a consultant of the truly offensive.
Nightmares are appropriate in this case. After all, there but for the grace of God go themselves. How horrible is it for children to learn that they have escaped the butcher block because their mother chose to continue her pregnancy? Should anyone be praised for choosing otherwise?
I guess I should clarify. I support their RIGHTS, but I despise their TACTICS.
Thank you for the discussion. Have a great day!
good reply..
My bumper sticker reads ...” Abortion the ultimate child abuse “ I get some thumbs up and i get some funny looks ..For all Christians in this season of Advent ..the readings say “ Mary was with child” ...this alone should speak volumes.
Do you protest if a teacher shows your kids pictures from the Holocaust of bodies piled up?
Some years back, the local library had a Halloween display on a table, prominently placed near the entrance. There for all ages to see was a realistic rubber hand with a bloody stump. My baby sister, not quite two years old, started to cry and shudder. We didn’t complain or sue anybody over it. (Mom picked it up and told her, a. it’s not real, and b. yes, it’s very ugly.)
Images of abortion are horrific and convey a horrible reality. If it upsets or offends, that’s as it should be. Still, I don’t think they should be on trucks, where they may be seen and left unexplained, contributing only to the incremental deadening of the sensitivities. Rather, one should place them where people can pause, read, and think.
There are some who extend their desire for infanticide to even children who are out of the womb; they want at least a week to decide if they can “euthenize” a child.
If the pro-life protesters cannot hold up pictures of the dead, why should pro-death protesters be able to hold up coat hangers with the implication of a horrific butchery?
They dropped the case. Does that mean that the DEFENDENTS don’t still need to pay their legal bills?
Nifong dropped his “case” too.
Sometimes God whispers to our hearts in different ways. Sometimes, like for you, it's the quiet touch. But sometimes, for other's of us, it takes a shout, or a slap in the face before we are ready to listen.
To ones who have said to me "But I couldn't carry a child for 9 months and then give it away to strangers!" I say "But could you bear to have it ripped, piece by piece from your womb?". I said this to one of my daughters friends whose mom has a "keep abortion legal" bumpersticker. (She was 15 and full of questions about sex and religion..old enough for honest discussion)
You wrote what I needed to hear. :) After all these years I can now remember that one particular graphic image, and that particular child in different light.
A real 'duh' moment for me.
My oldest daughter ane I were talking about the holocaust yesterday. She's had benefit of an awesome history teacher who transferred from the Middle School to High School, so she's in her class again this year. She's ready to watch Shindler's List with me. When I watched it with her older sister I told her she couldn't watch it until she was older. She's met 3 survivors who are in our church and has seen their tatooed numbers.
Sorry to go off topic. Yet it is all man's inhumanity to man.
My mom said something similar once and I asked her that if that 'material' had stayed in the womb, what would it have become? A labrador?
She said I had a point!
I should probably clarify what I opined. I don’t think it should be illegal to put up pictures of the victims of abortion. I would make different choices as to where to put them up, though.
No problem, I wasn’t attacking your view, just following up to all with my own rhetorical question.
This probably is not the most effective method of getting out the message, but I see no shame in it. The media and politicians instruct us that this is nothing bad but they do not want to confront the reality or permit open discussion of another point of view. 40-50million dead in America alone.
That far more than the number of illegal immigrants we have today.
Pushing for requiring ultrasound and a 3 day waiting period on abortions to contemplate the procedure would probably make a difference.
I don’t understand why Pro-Aborts would be offended. I mean, it’s just a clump of tissue, right?
OK. But what if the government was calling Auschwitz a "federally protected work farm" or the Milwaukee police said Dahmer was just "practicing home meat cutting"? I'd say there is a place for calling a spade a spade and not pretending abortion is anything but slaughter.
It's a question of age. A parent has a right and a duty to determine whether a child has the maturity to absorb images of human mutilation from abortion sites, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, or Jeffrey Dahmer's basement. Billboard-size or tractor-trailer size images of murdered children obliterate my parental role of discretion, and that's wrong.
Well-intended, but wrong.
I myself, personally, have shown such images to more people than possibly the whole readership of Free Republic. But I showed them to adults, not indiscriminately to a "general public" which includes our tenderest little ones.
Out of sight, out of mind...
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