GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION
To Support The Right To Free Expression
Orlando to judges: Let city regulate feeding of homeless
Free Expression Oral Arguments in Atlanta.
For the first time, a judge has ruled that sharing food with hungry and homeless people in a public park is expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Last week, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals took up an ordinance, passed in 2006 in Orlando, that requires a permit to distribute food to 25 people or more in one of the city’s parks. The city apparently argued that the trash overwhelmed the parks’ garbage cans.
Efforts to silence Food Not Bombs are underway in cities all across the United States. This case could finally end these arrests, fines and confiscations of banners and literature. Food Not Bombs volunteers made history in Connecticut this fall when the state passed a law protecting the publics right to share food with the hungry after the Middletown Food Not Bombs group was arrested. The police has also threatened Food Not Bombs volunteers in North Hampton, Massachusetts; Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Taos and Albuquerque, New Mexico, Flagstaff, Arizona and several other communities in the past few months. Police took the Food Not Bombs banner in Flagstaff last month. When the police tried to stop Orlando Food Not Bombs the authorities in West Palm Beach, Florida and Los Vegas, Nevada were also being threatened with arrest. While the police have tried to stop Food Not Bombs groups in over a dozen other cities the largest campaign was by the San Francisco Police who made over 1,000 arrest for "making a political statement" starting on August 15, 1988 and ending in June of 1997.
Attorney Jacqueline Dowd will represent Orlando Food Not Bombs in oral arguments to defend the groups right to free speech on December 17th at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, 56 Forsyth Street N.W., Atlanta, Georgia USA
For the first time, a judge has ruled that sharing food with hungry and homeless people in a public park is expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
That"s the most important part of the federal court ruling that Orlando's "large-group feeding" ordinance is unconstitutional. The ripple effects of the ruling could reach cities across the country where ordinances restricting efforts to feed hungry and homeless people are being considered.
The court ruled that the Orlando ordinance violates the rights of Orlando Food Not Bombs and the First Vagabonds Church of God to free speech and free exercise of religion.
To establish that their conduct is expressive and protected by the First Amendment, the members of Food Not Bombs had to prove that they are conveying a message that is likely to be understood by the public. The city tried to argue that their message that society can and should provide food for all of its members, regardless of wealth wasn't likely to be understood. But Mayor Buddy Dyer testified that he believes that Food Not Bombs provides food to the homeless only to convey its political message not necessarily to help the homeless.
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More on Attorney Jacqueline Dowd
jackiedowd.blogspot.com
www.la2w.org
P.O. Box 424, Arroyo Seco, NM 87514 USA
575-770-3377
1-800-884-1136
menu@foodnotbombs.net
www.foodnotbombs.net