Some words are worth fighting for

“Any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this court

bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity.”

Supreme Court (Bantam Books, Inc. vs. Sullivan, 1963)

“Whore,” “Satan’s spawn” and “drunk” aren’t necessarily words to

live by, but sometimes hearing them is part of the price we pay in a

country where -- unless for a compelling reason -- our words, or our

writings, are not regulated before we say or publish them.

That was at the core of a decision of the 4th District Court of

Appeal on Aug. 11. The court overturned a trial court injunction that

prohibited Anne Lemen, a neighbor of the Village Inn in Balboa

Island, from using such defamatory words in her public bemoaning of

noise and other nuisances at the bar-restaurant.

We agree with the court’s opinion.

Perhaps our own free speech leanings show here, but imagine a

country in which for no good reasons of law or compelling interest,

the government censored the media’s coverage of news before it was

actually reported. Imagine City Council meetings in which reporters

were vetted by the government before they could publish the meeting’s

events. We don’t think that’s a healthy system.

To rule differently in Lemen’s case would have given too much

power to the government to censor what a person says before a person

says it. At least let the harsh words be said. The restaurant itself,

in this case, has firmer legal ground to stand on if its being a

“whorehouse” is alleged and not censored by the government. If she

really said it, the plaintiff can try to prove it.

Lemen has filed several nuisance complaints with police, started

petition drives, and, according to allegations in the trial court,

called coming-and-going customers, employees and a wife of one of the

owners names such as “whores,” “madam whore,” “drunks,” “Satan” and

“Satan’s spawn.” Among the prohibitions in the trial-court injunction

won by Village Inn, Lemen could not say that the bar sells to minors,

that it’s open until 6 a.m., that it makes sex videos, that it is

involved in child pornography or that it’s connected with the mafia.

But the restriction on Lemen was “...based solely on [the

statements’] content” and broadened to “anyone, anywhere, at any

time, in any context,” the appeals court said in its opinion. That

broad application restricted her rights to make a public grievance in

the first place.

“I don’t know what her problem is,” Balboa Island resident Marko

Slattery said of Lemen.

But like it or not -- like her or not -- Lemen’s problem was

protecting a cherished right: to be able to speak or publish speech

when there is -- as the court said -- no compelling state interest

justifying restraints on that speech, and when there is no equal

competing right that could trump it.

Harsh on the ears? Sometimes yes. But that is the price for free

speech. That’s worth fighting for.