Jophiel wrote:
By my reading, the residents are more concerned about the tactics of screaming and shoving posters in your face than they are the actual clinic itself.
Sure. Except we don't know what question was asked of the homeowners association guy that prompted the answer he gave. Was he asked to comment on whether he liked PP setting up shop in his neighborhood?
By my reading of the article, they didn't even touch on whether the community was aware of the new PP building or how they felt about it. The reporter didn't even bother to ask (or at least didn't report on this aspect of the story). He wrote a story about how the pro-life folks will react to the PP building, and then how some in the community might react to the pro-life protests.
More to the point with regard to your statement, I don't recall anything in the story that said that those in community were "more upset" about the potential for protesting then the potential for having the PP building be there in the first place. Just because the article focuses on one thing that they don't like, and doesn't mention the other doesn't automatically mean that they actually dislike one more then the other. It just means that the writer chose to look at one and not the other.
Quote:
Quote:
The tactic is fundamentally no different then the ones used by the folks sitting on the side of the road with a "shame on <companyname>! labor dispute" sign.
I've never seen such people anywhere but outside of the business they were protesting. Not hassling patrons of other businesses. I'll admit in advance that your experiences may be different but I've never seen the guy in the rat suit protesting Wal-Mart's lack of unions anywhere but outside of a Wal-mart. He didn't hang out at the McDonald's nearby and yell at me.
I'm guessing you don't live in a "conservative/republican" neighborhood then (or perhaps its a state law difference)?
I see these sorts of signs literally every single day when driving to work. They set people up along the sidwalks. Not facing the business in question, but on the street so that those driving by can see them. These are in areas where there's mixed residence/businesses (strip malls in the suburbs). While they aren't in front of people's homes, they're clearly designed to garner attention from those driving by on their way to work and *not* to distract or even in most cases be visible from the businesses they're actually protesting.
Since this protest will be in your neck of the woods, I'll defer to your experience in terms of how they do things there. This is what I see all the time though, so I don't think it's that unusual.
Quote:
Ironically, I see this backfiring more than anything else. They're not going to just "get rid" of the clinic. It's not as though Planned Parenthood is going to say "Oh shit! Protesters!" and leave a nine million dollar facility. It's more likely that people will get sick of the guys waving posters at them every time they go to the ATM and get pissed at them instead.
Depends on how it's done though. I agree that if the protest consists of a bunch of people waving signs and marching around, it likely will not work. But some signs, perhaps a billboard ad nearby, parked vans with the anti-abortion information on it designed to raise awareness within a community as to what that building over there on the other side of the parking lot is doing could be very sucessful. Obviously, this depends on how "conservative" the community really is (and what brand of conservatives as well).
It would not be the first time a local community pushed their local city hall to rezone an area to push out a business they didn't want. Happens to **** shops and strip clubs all the time.
Quote:
Finding a way to corral the protesters elsewhere is probably easier than finding a way to evict a legal business.
Might be. It really does depend on how the community reacts to discovering that the "medical center" they were told was being built on that corner lot is actually going to be performing abortions. Unfortunately, the article didn't address that angle of the story (how the community is reacting to the news that there's going to be a PP facility in their neighborhood), so we can't really do more then speculate...
