Oldest Independence Day parade in Nation bans Tea Partiers for (gasp!) distributing copies of the Declaration and Constitution!
Banned
The oldest continuous Independence Day parade in America, despite having a history of famous (and some infamous) speeches and activities occurring during the event, has decided that a group using one of the most endearing Revolutionary period's actions as its symbol will not be welcome to participate next year.
First, some background. DailyAdvance.com writes of the Bristol, RI Fourth of July parade:
In July 1785, the citizens of this waterfront town assembled to heap praise on their newly minted nation and to thank God for helping them survive a fierce assault by the British during the Revolutionary War.
In July 1892, lawyer Orrin Bosworth preached that the townsfolk should be accepting of the immigrants arriving en masse: "America has no cause to fear the lover of freedom, be he American or foreign born."
And in July 1963, judge Arthur Carrellas roared to the citizenry about the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to ban Bible readings in public schools.
Prayer, speeches and other such "patriotic exercises" have marked the Fourth of July in Bristol every year since 1785 — allowing the town to lay claim to the nation's oldest Independence Day celebration.
Over the years, the speeches — given by judges, senators, war veterans and others — have run the gamut from typical exhortations of patriotism to muscle-flexing against Communist countries to criticism of court decisions.
The patriotic exercises and annual parade that follows are institutions in Bristol, where pride in country is manifest in the red-white-and-blue center stripe that runs through the main artery of the town and in the American flags and banners that hang outside restored colonial homes.
Fast forward to the present... According to an email from one of the organizers of the Tea Party movement in Rhode Island, they have been banned from participating in the parade in future years because some members of the group (gasp!) were distributing copies of the Constitution!
As we informed you this week, the RI Tea Party float in the Bristol Fourth of July Parade was a HUGE success, with people in the crowd showing overwhelming support and enthusiasm for our cause. Although we expected a positive reception, the response of the parade watchers was beyond our wildest imaginations. We were proud to represent the freedom loving people of Rhode Island to celebrate our country's Independence!
Today, we received news from the Bristol Parade Committee that the RI Tea Party is to NEVER apply to appear in the Bristol Parade again. We were told unequivocally that our group was "horrible", "not to waste the stamp to send in an application in the future", and that the Committee never wanted "those people" of the RI Tea Party to participate in the parade in the first place.
Why would the Bristol Parade Committee have such a negative response to our float when the crowd was so overwhelmingly positive? We are told it is because some members of the RI Tea Party passed out US Constitutions to the crowd. Apparently passing out the US Constitution on Independence Day is an egregious violation of parade rules. This is despite the fact that other floats passed out solicitations for their businesses, which is against the Parade guidelines, and these businesses have NOT been told that they are banned from participating in the future.
This clear discrimination by the Parade Committee was also evident as the RI Tea Party was rejected for sound on the float and was told the morning of the Parade by one of the parade committee inspectors that she "never heard of someone being rejected for sound" before and they were "probably afraid you would say something politically incorrect."
We encourage you to contact the Bristol Parade Committee at 401 480-1608 (Jim Tavares) or by mail to the Bristol Fourth of July Committee, P.O. Box 561, Bristol, RI 02809, and let them know how you feel about their discriminatory behavior towards a group which represents Liberty, particularly in celebration of an event dedicated to our country's freedom. Letters to the editor of the Bristol Phoenix can be written to Scott Pickering, at spickering@eastbaynewspapers.com . Letters to the editor of the Providence Journal can be sent to letters@projo.com.
They will not squelch our voices! We have only just begun!Marina Peterson
RI Tea Party
Justin Katz, writing at the Anchor Rising blog has an update which includes the parade rule supposedly broken by the Tea Partiers. Do the parade organizers not see the strange irony in this story, given the cause they are supposedly celebrating?
Comments
Posted by: NH | July 11, 2009 11:59 PM
Posted by: DCE | July 12, 2009 5:05 PM
Posted by: James | July 12, 2009 10:43 PM
Posted by: doug | July 12, 2009 10:47 PM
Posted by: Denny | July 15, 2009 3:02 PM
Posted by: Commander Z | July 17, 2009 12:03 PM