Pro-life stand-off at The Alamo
On the heels of showing the reality of abortion last week on a huge, video-streaming JumboTron at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia - where the term “created equal” was penned by our Founding Fathers - pro-life group Created Equal was blocked in San Antonio yesterday from erecting the same display at the Alamo.
This was a clear violation of Created Equal’s constitutional right to free speech – content based discrimination.
At the last minute City officials claimed Created Equal’s JumboTron violated city code regarding digital signs, but the city had previously approved jumbotrons for a Floyd Mayweather boxing event (kudos to ksat for pointing that out to the city) and a Glenn Beck Tea Party rally (starts at 1:26).
Furthermore, Created Equal had followed the letter of the law and city ordinances in preparing to show images of abortion victims at the Alamo. I will detail the chain of events below, but here is video laying out the drama yesterday:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/_Ila3zp0WCc[/youtube]
Now, here are the facts, as provided to me by Created Equal’s Executive Director Mark Harrington in an email:
- We began the process of securing a permit for the Alamo Plaza on August 29, 2014.
- We listed the JumboTron as part of the display.
- We sent pictures and descriptions of the JumboTron to the Special Events Coordinator. They knew the nature of the event up front.
- We received an approved facility permit on September 22, 2014.
- Security for the event was arranged for us through the Special Events Coordinator.
- We received an email at 6:59pm CST (the night before the event) from the Director of Development Services informing us that the Jumbotron was in violation of city code provisions related to the use of digital signs. They waited to the 11th hour to inform us of the issue.
- No phone number was provided to contact the director or citation was provided for the particular sign code.
- Commercial sign codes cannot be applied to temporary first amendment displays. The city looked and found a way to keep us off of Alamo Plaza despite the fact that we had an approved permit.
- After arriving at the Alamo at 7:30am on Oct. 20, the planters were moved to block our entrance into the plaza.
- Around 9:30am Roderick Sanchez, Director of Development Services, shows up on site and admits that “they blew it” in handling the permit but tells us we cannot display the JumboTron. We asked for the sign code citation and were told it would be forthcoming.
- Hours pass and no one provides the sign code information.
- Around 11:00am police inform us that code compliance office workers will be moving the planters that will allow us to display the JumboTron. Police tell us they will protect our rights to free speech.
- Soon afterwards a suit for the city tells us they are going to cite us for violating the sign ordinance and possibly cite us for several other criminal infractions that they refused to disclose.
- Suit reneges on the agreement and tells us we cannot pull the Jumbotron onto the plaza.
- City vehicles block the entrance to the plaza and planters are put in the way.
- Stand-off ends as city refuses to honor their agreement to allow the JumboTron to be displayed.
This is by no means over. Harrington told me via phone this morning his group is in working with Life Legal Defense Foundation to determine a response. And as Harrington told a throng of news reporters who were on hand to witness the day’s events:
This was about abortion, not sign compliance. Once the City of San Antonio bureaucrats found out we had an approved permit to display the JumboTron they scoured the city code to find a way to stop us.
If we had wanted to perform an abortion at Alamo Plaza they would have protected our right to do so. But since we were going to show an abortion, they did all they could to stop us.
We will regroup. We will evaluate our legal options. But this battle is far from over. We are not going away. If city leaders think they got rid of us they have another thing coming.
The silver lining is the vast amount of local news coverage the cancelled event triggered:
mysanantonio.com 1
mysanantonio.com 2
news4sanantonio.com
ksat.com
kens5.com 1
kens5.com 2
foxsanantonio.com
woai.com
houstonpress.com
Pro-lifers will indeed remember the Alamo.
[Top two photos via mysanantonio.com]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Sounds like a pro-abort butting heads with someone in the city administration. This is why trust in government is at all-time lows, nobody plays by the rules, the rules aren’t applied fairly, the rules aren’t clear and many don’t know what they are anyway. You had all of those in play here, this is bizarre. Corruption is our drug of choice.
The folks that are selling abortion sure are doing everything possible to keep folks from seeing what their money will buy.
In my lifetime.
“The silver lining is the vast amount of local news coverage the cancelled event triggered.”
Yay!!!! This is why we win, even when we lose!
The point is to spread the truth, and to get people thinking and talking about life, and dignity, injustice, and abortion. Texans are already acutely aware that their abortion facilities are substandard. San Antonio, in particular, has abortion buildings that are not worthy of ambulatory surgery and high-risk abortion doctors who can not get access to local hospitals.
On top of this, San Antonio citizens are deprived of a free educational opportunity to see what abortion really is.
San Antonio’s Catholic bishop has spoken boldly about the injustice of abortion, and how Catholics under his care cannot vote for candidates who support that injustice.
San Antonio is a battleground. And the city fathers of San Antonio have just pitch themselves on the wrong side of the battle line!
It would be compelling if on Monday an individual other than Harrington was granted a permit for a digital sign celebrating something as inert as say, horse racing. Then Harrington gets a permit for Tuesday in the same space for the Created Equal show.
The ‘Created Equal’ folks have now encountered the democRATs who believe that all are created equal, but some are created more equal than others.
.
humans are stupid, but democRATs have worked over time to exceed the known bounds of stupidity.
Although I very rarely agree w/ Ken, I agree that some progressives, especially those who hold the pro-choice/abortion rights viewpoint, tend to speak/behave as if they believe some are created more equal than others due to the circumstances surrounding their conception & birth or the economic status they were born into (the whole concept of the child resulting from an unplanned pregnancy being “unwanted” & “unloveable”, “rapist baby/spawn,” “trailer trash/ghetto” etc) I’ve especially seen this mentality in the wealthy social elite of the pro-choice movement & those who work in social/public service jobs.