Speechless

“Mommy, what’s that?”

Franco Fuda

Police Chief of Bonneau, South Carolina

Freedom of speech is a powerful thing. This hard-fought, constitutionally protected right lets us voice our opinion about a whole lot of stuff: from politics to education to religion, and just about everything in between. But does it give us the right to hang tacky accessories from our vehicles? That’s the question one woman in small town South Carolina is about to find out.

Virginia Tice, of Bonneau, South Carolina (population 404), was cited recently for hanging—there’s no delicate way of putting this—fake testicles from the back of her pickup. They’re red, about eight inches long, and they caught the eye of the Bonneau police chief. Understandably. Enforcing an anti-obscenity law, the police chief ticketed Ms. Tice $445 for the dangling “Bulls Balls.” The chief offered to let Ms. Tice off the hook if she’d only remove the offending appendages, but she said nope. She’ll have her day in court, where she can argue the finer points of being tacky versus being obscene. You see, being tacky is constitutionally protected; being obscene is not.

All I can say is the whole thing leaves me, well, speechless.

Read the Article ® Testing the limits of free speech