Banning protesters
The Herald claims Mayor Wu’s ordinance banning protesters from residential homes would be a boon to Boston civility. Wu’s finely crafted law uses time and manner restrictions on free speech to give the appearance of constitutionality, however, a consideration of the pretextual makes it is clear Wu’s rule is a crass attempt at illegal viewpoint discrimination. The edict is an insult to both the Colonial and modern history of Boston. Any official who would distort the state and federal constitutions to silence her critics gives their office the most odious taint, and their actions are the height of incivility. Since before Cotton Mather, Bostonians have detested the scent of monarchy and that wind is now blowing from the office of the mayor and the City Council.
In the home of the Freedom Trail, there is something very un-American and unfree about banning mothers and displaced workers from speaking. These men and women were operating within the legal boundaries of the noise ordinance for the past 60 days. Their only crime was their effectiveness in challenging a progressive darling of the local media. Every ham-fisted technique was used by Wu and her allies to blunt the moms’ messaging. COVID rules have been used and are still being used to limit access to officialdom. Masks are required to enter Boston City Hall and must be worn as a requisite for testifying on policy and ordinances in the Boston City Council chambers. On Feb. 15, as this health emergency was virtually over, the state legislature and Gov. Baker, with no debate, curtailed the open meeting law and manipulated town meeting statutes making it easier for local officials to pass unpopular rules and taxes while limiting the safeguards and sunlight of citizen voices and witnesses. Remembering the words of the Declaration of Independence, you could almost say that Mayor Wu and the City Council are using COVID rules to make access to legislative bodies and executive branch officials “unusual, uncomfortable, distant” for the sole purpose of fatiguing the people into compliance.
John Adams when crafting the Massachusetts Constitution gave citizens an almost unfettered right “to assemble and consult upon the common good and to give instruction to their representatives.” A cursory examination of modern Boston history tells us that “giving instruction” happened frequently at the homes of Boston mayors in the near past. Black Lives Matter activists and protesters calling for the defunding of Boston police repeatedly called at the Dorchester front door of Mayor Marty Walsh’s home before 6 a.m. in 2020. Organized labor certainly thought their actions were civil and righteous when union firefighters assembled and protested in front of Mayor Tom Menino’s home in Hyde Park. Mayor Kevin White did not whine in 1979, when Mel King marched 500 Roxbury protesters upset over a crime and murder spree in their neighborhood to the front door of his home on Beacon Hill.
Ultimately, Mayor Wu should drop the royal scepter and adopt a more tolerant attitude about the people who disagree with her. That cussed American spirit to obstinately have our opinion heard isn’t going away any time soon. Wu’s proposed ordinance is a loser for free speech rights and for Boston.
— Lou Murray, chairman, Boston Ward 20 GOP