Town bans profanity? What the fuck Massachusetts!

[jmc]

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...in-public?lite

Spoiler: show

MIDDLEBOROUGH, Mass. -- Residents in Middleborough have voted to make the foul-mouthed among them pay fines for swearing in public.

At a town meeting Monday night, residents voted 183-50 to approve a proposal from the police chief to impose a $20 fine on public profanity.

Officials insist the proposal was not intended to censor casual or private conversations, but instead to crack down on loud, profanity-laden language used by teens and other young people in the downtown area and public parks.


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I'm really happy about it," Mimi Duphily, a store owner and former town selectwoman, said after the vote. "I'm sure there's going to be some fallout, but I think what we did was necessary."

Advertise | AdChoicesThe measure could raise questions about First Amendment rights, but state law does allow towns to enforce local laws that give police the power to arrest anyone who "addresses another person with profane or obscene language" in a public place.

Matthew Segal, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the government cannot prohibit public speech just because it contains profanity.

The ordinance gives police discretion over whether to ticket someone if they believe the cursing ban has been violated.

Duphily, who runs an auto parts store, is among the downtown merchants who wanted take a stand against the kind of swearing that can make customers uncomfortable.

"They'll sit on the bench and yell back and forth to each other with the foulest language. It's just so inappropriate," she said.

Fined for free speech?
Middleborough, a town of about 20,000 residents perhaps best known for its rich cranberry bogs, has had a bylaw against public profanity since 1968. But because that bylaw essentially makes cursing a crime, it has rarely if ever been enforced, officials said, because it simply would not merit the time and expense to pursue a case through the courts.

The ordinance would decriminalize public profanity, allowing police to write tickets as they would for a traffic violation. It would also decriminalize certain types of disorderly conduct, public drinking and marijuana use, and dumping snow on a roadway.


Follow @msnbc_usSegal praised Middleborough for reconsidering its bylaw against public profanity, but said fining people for it isn't much better.

"Police officers who never enforced the bylaw might be tempted to issue these fines, and people might end up getting fined for constitutionally protected speech," he said.

Another local merchant, Robert Saquet, described himself as "ambivalent" about the no-swearing proposal, likening it to try to enforce a ban on the seven dirty words of George Carlin, a nod to a famous sketch by the late comedian.

"In view of words commonly used in movies and cable TV, it's kind of hard to define exactly what is obscene," said Paquet, who owns a downtown furniture store.

But Duphily said, "I don't care what you do in private. It's in public what bothers me."

The Boston Globe reported that Middleborough voters also approved a $50 fine for littering; a $50 fine for shoveling snow into the street; and a $300 fine for smoking marijuana in public.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Yea......

[Brill Weave]

Freedom of Speech says fuck you.

[Myrrh_Quetz]

So glad I don't live there. I'd be in jail by the end of the week.

[Seanr]

Who gets to define whats profane?

[kuronosan]

http://whatvinniethinks.com/wp-conte...hn-Spartan.png

Let the ass-wiping begin!

[Hiryo]

I live in New England and you can't silence these big mouths

[Talint]

Better watch out; dancing is next.

[archibaldcrane]

All the pearls have been clutched.

[Seanr]

all of them?

[Ragnus]

Yeah. Posted this in Wop's Checkout. I've been wtfing at this all day so far. I really hope this gets struck down at some point.

[Iono]

http://whatvinniethinks.com/wp-conte...hn-Spartan.png

Let the ass-wiping begin!

lol first thing i thought of too

[Dimmauk]

Is this what to expect if Romney is president?

[Cleverness]

lol first thing i thought of too

I still want to know how the fucking 3 seashells work.

[Jaybar]

Nothing says "upstanding citizen of society" than lewd, obnoxious public profanity.

There's a time and place for swearing and it's when you are royally pissed off (like, this thread). Casual swearing* makes you look like an idiot with a vocabulary of a red-neck. I'm on the fence with this one because I'm being pulled by two sides - the constitutional force and the public decency force.

*Using "fucking" for every fucking adjective.

[kuronosan]

Nothing says "upstanding citizen of society" than lewd, obnoxious public profanity.

There's a time and place for swearing and it's when you are royally pissed off (like, this thread). Casual swearing* makes you look like an idiot with a vocabulary of a red-neck. I'm on the fence with this one because I'm being pulled by two sides - the constitutional force and the public decency force.

*Using "fucking" for every fucking adjective.

Yea? Well I have a right to my opinion too and my opinion is that you have no right to your opinion.

[Aksannyi]

Nothing says "upstanding citizen of society" than lewd, obnoxious public profanity.

There's a time and place for swearing and it's when you are royally pissed off (like, this thread). Casual swearing* makes you look like an idiot with a vocabulary of a red-neck. I'm on the fence with this one because I'm being pulled by two sides - the constitutional force and the public decency force.

*Using "fucking" for every fucking adjective.

I disagree. I think that people need to stop being offended by every little word people might say. This culture we have right now is so damned offended by everything and I'm tired of it. They're just words, as long as their meaning is not that of full disparagement of a race (words like nigger, for the most obvious example), I don't see what the big deal is. Does it physically harm someone when I say fucking fuck motherbitching shit? People need to grow some balls and get over it, seriously.

[Jaybar]

It's not that the words are offensive (unless directed at you - but at that point any words are going to be threatening if your tone reflects it). Is our society going to degenerate to the point where we have only seven words to describe how we feel? Where is the civility in it? We will forever tie profanity to offensive and salacious behavior, and you'll be looked at as an inferior for using it as your modicum for speech. Is it so hard to use a vocabulary that isn't entrenched in the avant garde of profanity to express yourself as an individual of equitable intelligence?

[Ragnus]

Uhm... I mostly get my point across about how I feel without feeling the need to go through the laundry list of SAT words since they mostly make the person talking sound like a jackass.

[tyven]

revenue generator. BAM

[kuronosan]

It's not that the words are offensive (unless directed at you - but at that point any words are going to be threatening if your tone reflects it). Is our society going to degenerate to the point where we have only seven words to describe how we feel? Where is the civility in it? We will forever tie profanity to offensive and salacious behavior, and you'll be looked at as an inferior for using it as your modicum for speech. Is it so hard to use a vocabulary that isn't entrenched in the avant garde of profanity to express yourself as an individual of equitable intelligence?

I can read a dictionary and sound like a pompous dick too. Relax. Society isn't going to crumble because people curse.