Prohibiting Silent Protest: Is It the Method or the Issue?
Silent protests are a great way of making your opinion know - without screaming or arguing or fighting over it. Silence can say more than words. For this reason, there are silent protests for a variety of issues. Two in the U.S. are the Day of Silence for gay rights and the Day of Silent Solidarity for the pro-life cause. Some people, particularly school officials where students would be participating, prohibit silent protests, cause, according to them, it would disrupt the educational process. Or is it the issue?
If you prohibit one form of silent protest, you should also prohibit the other, or if you allow one, you should allow the other, too. This would make it possible to decide whether it’s the issue that’s prohibited (which would be a violation of the constitutional right to free speech) or the method being used. After all, most people would participate in eithe rof these prosts, not both (I’m an exception), because a pro-lifer who supports gay rights or a pro-choicer who opposes them, is a rarity. In my opinion, these protests should ber allowed, but if they are not, then none should be.
