Alan Bounville, the New York-based activist, was arrested Friday and released on Saturday evening after “erecting a structure” outside Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s campaign office on West 26th Street in Manhattan, where he and other activists on Sept. 27 began a vigil to push for sexual orientation and gender identity to be added to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He’ll be in court Dec. 3, which like all things these days is after the mid-term elections.
the crustybastard
So a gay guy has no First Amendment right to peacefully protest our government’s discriminatory laws and policies outside an elected officials’ office…
But
Religious nuts possess some special First Amendment right to “protest” that our government’s laws and policies are insufficiently discriminatory outside a private individual’s funeral, performed with the stated and deliberate intent to provoke onlookers into violence.
If Thomas Jefferson could rise from the grave, he’d probably look around then blow his own head off.
ewe
Because remember (according to her campaign advertisement) that Gillibrand will fight for your family as long as it looks like her own family. Which means we shit outta luck with this bigot.
Rebecca
What was this supposed to accomplish? It’s just another look-at-me-activist that wants attention.
the crustybastard
@Rebecca:
What have you accomplished and how did you do it?
Chris Reynolds
Quite clearly another scream for attention from Alan Bounville. He won’t stop until he’s erected a full-on cross and nailed himself to it in Times Square.
His only concern is publicity for himself – he could give a crap about equality. Which is why nearly everyone who has ever worked with him as an activist has completely written him off, including the guy who started this silly vigil in the first place.
Alan sent out a facebook “plea” asking people to pay his rent, his phone bill and car payments while he sat outside Gillibrand’s office for weeks on end. Most other activists find a way to pay their bills and be activists at the same time, but Alan believes other people should pay his bills while he gets himself some more publicity so that he can tour his one-man show around the country some more. I wish i was making some of this up, but it is all true.