N.J. woman must remove anti-Biden F-bomb signs or face $250-a-day fines, judge rules

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11. Hard to think of a stronger First Amendment position to be in than ...

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Hard to think of a stronger First Amendment position to be in than criticizing the head of state on your own property

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She Hates Biden. Some of Her Neighbors Hate the Way She Shows It.

A local judge ordered a New Jersey woman to take down political banners over obscenity complaints, setting up a First Amendment fight.



Andrea Dick outside her home in Roselle Park, N.J., with one of the political signs a judge said she did not have to remove. Credit...Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

By Ed Shanahan
July 20, 2021

Andrea Dick is a die-hard supporter of former President Donald J. Trump and thinks the election was stolen from him, although that claim has been thoroughly discredited. She does not like President Biden, and that is putting it mildly.

Her opinions are clear in the blunt slogans blaring from the banners outside her New Jersey home: “Don’t Blame Me/I Voted for Trump” and several others that attack Mr. Biden in crude terms. Several feature a word that some people find particularly objectionable but whose use the Supreme Court long ago ruled could not be restricted simply to protect those it offends.

When local officials asked her to take down several of the banners that they said violated an anti-obscenity ordinance, she refused. Now, she is resisting a judge’s order that she do so and pledging to fight it in court on free speech grounds. ... “It’s my First Amendment right,” she said in an interview on Monday, “and I’m going to stick with that.”

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“Freedom of speech is not simply an absolute right,” {Judge Gary A. Bundy of Roselle Park Municipal Court} added, noting later that “the case is not a case about politics. It is a case, pure and simple, about language. This ordinance does not restrict political speech.” (Nj.com reported Judge Bundy’s ruling on Friday.)

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Ed Shanahan is a rewrite reporter and editor covering breaking news and general assignments on the Metro desk. @edkshanahan