Property owners have rights too

We’ve been quick to advocate First Amendment rights in this editorial column, as well we might. There aren’t many instances where we don’t support our free speech rights as Americans.

This time, we have to draw the line.

The Alaska State Fair has been taking a beating the last few days, thanks to an altercation there Thursday evening between security personnel and perennial protester Sidney Hill.

At last count, the Frontiersman’s online comment board had tallied 139 posts. While that is no record, the number and scope of the comments gives an idea the circulation of the YouTube video of the incident — it’s had more than 115,000 views.

We aren’t going to comment on Hill’s pro-Lyndon Larouche/anti-Barack Obama sign. His message isn’t the issue here. He has the right to deliver his message, but, as some have pointed out in the postings, the questions of where and how are the issues.

Hill faces misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and trespassing. There are many who have posted, and many quick to be heard on the YouTube video, who say those charges are bunk. They say freedom of speech means Hill can take his message to the Alaska State Fairgrounds, just like those who promote other political candidates or controversial issues.

There’s a big difference.

Let’s say you hold an event at your home — or even if you rent space at, say, the fairgrounds — to raise support for better wildlife habitat for moose. You let anyone in who is willing to pay the $50-a-plate dinner fund-raiser. Among those who pay the $50 and join the event is a person who thinks all moose are bad because he hit one and his car was totaled. In the middle of your nicely choreographed fund-raising event, he stands on a table, unrolls a banner and starts shouting, “The only good moose is a dead moose.”

Would you ask him to leave? Would you insist if he became uncooperative? Might you even ask he be charged with trespassing?

The Alaska State Fair is owned by a nonprofit association. It is as private of property as your home. Each vendor allowed to sell goods or even a concept there has signed a contract with the fair association and paid a fee to do so. Should the vendor not abide by the terms and conditions of the contract, that contract can be terminated. The fair can also pick and choose which vendors are there; its management does just that.

Buying a $10 ticket to get into the fair doesn’t give anyone the right to use the event as a forum to trumpet ideas loudly, abrasively and disruptively. It doesn’t give the right to sell goods or ideas. In the same way you cannot hawk bottled water from a cooler in a Radio Flyer wagon at the fair, you cannot turn it into your own political circus.

And we are glad of it.