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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Religious pro-lifers prevented from viewing Bill of Rights because National Archives forbids free speech

The evil hat that Air & Space banned
An example of the evil pro-life clothing
banned by the National Archives

They’re coming for you next: Students and parents and others who had just attended the January 20, 2023 March for Life event in Washington were told by numerous National Archives security officials that day that they must remove or cover any pro-life shirts, jackets, hats, or buttons or they would be ejected from the museum.

From the lawsuit [pdf] filed by three of those pro-life individuals:

Plaintiff L.R., her mother, and her fellow classmates [about 35 people] were ushered through security and into the first group of visitors to enter the Rotunda where the Constitution and Bill of Rights are on exhibit.

…Approximately five minutes later, Plaintiff L.R. and her fellow classmates were suddenly approached by Defendant John Doe 1 who instructed Plaintiff L.R. and her classmates to remove all pro-life attire. John Doe 1 specifically instructed Plaintiff L.R. that she could not be wearing anything pro-life and that she must cover her shirt and not unzip it until she had left the National Archives. John Doe 1 also instructed Plaintiff L.R. and her other classmates to remove their pro-life buttons. John Doe 1 made other classmates standing near Plaintiff L.R. remove their pro-life hats. One such hat contained the inscription, “LIFE always WINS.” Another hat contained the inscription, “ProLife.” Plaintiff L.R. witnessed another guard participate in these instructions to her classmates and at no time did any of the other guards in the Rotunda intercede and provide contrary instruction.

Plaintiff L.R., astonished by John Doe 1’s instructions – given her close proximity to the very documents that prohibit the government’s interference with her First Amendment right to free speech and expression and her free exercise of religion – nonetheless zipped up her jacket and removed her button for fear that she would be thrown out of the National Archives if she did not comply. [emphasis mine]

The evil speech banned by the National Archives
Another example of evil speech
banned by the National Archives

This same intolerance was also done to other pro-life individuals attempting to view the Bill of Rights, by numerous different security guards in different locations at the museum. All were threatened with eviction if they did not cover or remove the shirts, jackets, or hats that had pro-life statements on them. In one case a group of 30-40 students were ordered by several guards to remove their pro-life shirts, an example of which is shown to the right.

Plaintiff Kallal heard some of the students respond to the order by stating: “We don’t have any other clothing. Just our shirts.” Many of the students were young women who were unable to comply with the order owing to modesty concerns. Plaintiff Kallal heard other students respond that they would rather leave than give up their right to free speech. Plaintiff Kallal observed the whole group of students leave the building.

This story is not the same one I reported on February 2nd, where a group of pro-life students were kicked out of the Air & Space Museum on this same day for wearing pro-life hats. It is just another, almost identical incident that occurred on the same day at a different DC museum, and illustrates the deep intolerant culture that now permeates our government institutions. Though the National Archives immediately apologized for the behavior of its security guards, it also apparently has done nothing to discipline them for their inappropriate behavior. Instead, it has simply “reminded all of our security officers at our facilities across the country of the rights of visitors in this regard.” My heart be still.

In the lawsuit Plainiff L.R. states she intends to attend next year’s March for Life, and fears if she once again tries to view the original documents that enshrined free speech in America, she and her companions fear that the National Archives “will again, even more harshly, single her out, threaten to remove her from the National Archives and/or force her to cover up or remove her religious, pro-life clothing and attire.”

I say, come in mass, hundreds of people, all wearing tons of pro-life clothing, and dare them to throw you all out again. The National Archives has apologized and said this action violated its policies. Let’s find out if that statement is true, or if they were simply lying to get by until the heat dies down and they could then resume their real policy of censorship and intolerance.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

21 comments

  • Andi

    Minor edit in last paragraph: “come en masse”

  • pzatchok

    This lawsuit looks like a slam dunk.

    I want to know who sent out the memo to all the government agencies stating something like this was appropriate? One incident is possible, two is starting to look organized.
    FOA request should clear this up.

  • Andi: In this case I don’t see an error. I have simply written this in English. :)

  • Andi

    Bob, “en masse” is an accepted English term. I guess I haven’t seen usage of the direct English translation.

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/en%20masse

    However,

    https://grammarwithteeth.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/grammar-victim-en-masse-vs-in-mass/

    :)

  • Edward

    I have not yet read the complaint/lawsuit, but were the security officials saying the same thing to people wearing other phrases on their clothing? Tourists have a tendency, since the 1960s, to wear a lot of casual clothing, including many that have pithy or meaningful sayings (e.g. “I’m with stupid” or “USS Iowa”). If they bought a shirt at a D.C. museum with a message from that museum, would they have been allowed to wear it? Are there posted rules at the entrance that forbids clothing with messages or corporate logos?

    If the National Archives Museum doesn’t understand the meaning of what is archived, then who in Washington D.C. does, and why are they bothering to archive it?

    Oops. Spoke too soon. From the linked complaint:

    49. Plaintiff L.R. observed, however, that items available for purchase in the gift shop included several items with expressive statements, including rainbow PRIDE t-shirts and pins.

    Look at that. Not only has the government taken sides in politics but so have D.C.’s public museums.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithsonian_Institution

    The Smithsonian Institution … is a group of museums and education and research centers … created by the U.S. government “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge”. Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trust instrumentality and is not formally a part of any of the three branches of the federal government. [Ellipses mine]

    As it turns out, the National Archives and Records Administration is a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government, “charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Archives_Building

    The National Archives building holds original copies of the three main formative documents of the United States and its government: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. These are displayed to the public in the main chamber of the National Archives, which is called the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom.

    Charters of Freedom? Whose freedom, and why didn’t that group have it, too?

    From the linked complaint:

    53. After a brief conversation with Defendant Jane Doe 1, Defendant John Doe 2 approached Plaintiff Lassiter and stated “You have to take your shirt off. Your shirt will incite others,” and “would cause a disturbance. You’re disturbing the peace.” [This is as far as I have gotten, but it already has me angry]

    Wait. What? The peace had been disturbed? There was disturbed peace in the room? It seems to me that the peace had not been disturbed but that such a disturbance was possible — but by other people, as Defendant John Doe stated.

    So, if someone were wearing one of the rainbow t-shirts or pins sold in the gift shop, and I were to be incited by that article of clothing, then who would the security officials accuse of incitement, the wearer of the clothing or me? I suspect it would not be the people with the gift shop items, the ones peaceably expressing their First Amendment-protected freedom of speech. A standard for me, but no standards for thee.

    The security officials have declared that the people in the wrong are not the ones who would disturb the peace (anti-life people?), if they were “triggered,” but are the ones (pro-life) that were peacefully exercising their rights, as protected by the very documents contained in that room. Heckler’s veto. My right to swing my fist ends at your nose, and my right to free speech ends at your feelings. What about my feelings about having my free speech rights abridged? Ah. The plaintiff’s rights don’t matter, because they are not on the government’s side of the political spectrum. Free speech for those who toe The Party line, but no speech for anyone else, and enforced by The Party’s governmental security officials.

    Rather than provide security for those who exercise their rights, as protected by the Archive’s documents, the officials provide security for those who would disturb the peace — the bad guys (the misbehaving guys).

    Welcome to Obama’s fundamentally transformed America, land of the formerly free, home of the fearful progressives.

  • Cotour

    Related:

    HOW DESPERATE AND DEPRAVED THE RADICAL LEFT?

    How depraved, desperate and indifferent to the reality of the human condition and the safety, interests and care for children are those radicals on the extreme Left in America? The extreme radical Lefts agenda to normalize differently oriented lifestyles within America have driven them to choose themselves over the safety, interests and care of children today and in the future. Let that sink in for a moment.

    The extreme radical Lefts drive to have their “politically correct” / “woke” Socialist culture of dependency lifestyle declared normal and good in America over and above the safety, interests and care of children. And they are by numbers a vast MINORITY.

    The only answer? Teach mutual respect in the home and at school no matter a person’s individual differences and personal life choices. Instead, what do we find? The teaching of racism, hatred and forced attitudes in the media and in some homes and in many schools. Two wrongs do not make a right.

    And I know many people who live a differently oriented lifestyle and are good and caring people who would never trade the one, the safety, interests and care of children for the other, their own individual interests. There are reasonable, rational lines to be drawn in these kinds of situations. Like it or not children are better served in a family unit with a married mother and father. Which does not mean a different path cannot be chosen.

    Each culture and society solves the prime directive equation in the way that they solve it. What is the prime directive equation? How do human beings come together and reproduce successfully and raise their offspring to the point they are independent and productive in society? And the vast majority of societies successfully solve the equation approximately in the same manner. Which does not mean that differently oriented individuals from the norm are unable to choose a different model to follow. But never trade the safety, interests and care of children for it.

    “Democratic South Dakota state Rep. Erin Healy suggested that idealizing the traditional two-parent married household is “dangerous” and “un-American” in a Monday tweet.

    Healy was rebuking Family Heritage Alliance’s claim that a home with a married mother and father was the safest place for a child. Critics came to the group’s defense, with some pointing to data supporting the claim that married biological parents are the safest adults for children to live with.”

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fo5HoV7XsAEYq-f?format=jpg&name=large

  • Sandra Larson Gonzales

    I’ve been to those museums, 99% of the workers are Black, my guess they’d have no problem with BLM crap

  • M Puckett

    They need to have some people wear pro-abortion garb at the same time and film the security letting them go on through.

  • Cotour

    And on that subject: Who here has seen ANYTHING in the mad dog media about the 5 black police officers that mercilessly killed that young black man in Memphis?

    Exactly, NOTHING!

    Why? Because it does not fit the radical Left (D) “politically correct” / “woke” destroy America narrative.

    Paying attention yet America?

  • Cotour: More significant is the lack of national coverage of the mass killing at a Michigan university by a black man. Most of his victims — but not all — were white.

  • Cotour

    A little bit more reality for you America:

    WE ARE ALL BUT POTENTIAL COLLATERAL DAMAGE AS FAR AS THE CAUSE GOES

    And who and what is the cause?

    “Woke prosecutor who refused to jail or even ban MSU shooter from buying a gun after his 2019 felony weapons charge”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11754087/Woke-prosecutor-dropped-2019-felony-charge-against-MSU-gunman-stopped-buying-gun.html

    Every person in every major city in America who has allowed their legislature, law enforcement and justice system to be essentially owned and ruled by the wacky, un and anti-America “progressive” / “woke”, Socialist, radical, Sorosian, Globalist (D) Left are in danger of being killed because of it.

    All and every citizen, black (especially black, these Leftist political perverts really don’t like you, no matter what they say), white, red, yellow or polka dot.

    We are all now potential collateral damage, just a cost of doing business for the “fundamental” change that these ideological political parasites are pushing.

    And you believe that your election systems are true blue and are not corrupted? The most accurate and honest in history? Think again. By any means necessary means exactly that.

    Are you paying attention yet America?

    https://i0.wp.com/aphadolie.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/George-Soros-Klaus-Schwab-Bill-Gates.jpg?ssl=1

  • Edward

    M Puckett wrote: “They need to have some people wear pro-abortion garb at the same time and film the security letting them go on through.

    After I calmed down a bit, I read further and discovered that this may have already happened:

    58. While in the National Archives, Plaintiff Lassiter observed at least two other National Archives visitors, a man and a woman, freely walking around while wearing what appeared to be “pro-choice” apparel, with statements to the effect of “My Body, My Choice,” and “Pro-Choice.

    Pro-abortion garb was being worn at the very same time and within sight of those who were harassed by the security officials and within sight of those same security officials.

    Clearly the National Archives are a free speech zone, but only if the speech is politically agreeable to those in charge of the Archives. They have chosen sides in politics and are abusing their authority to enforce their own opinions over the opinions of the people they are failing to serve.

    Seriously, I gotta stop reading, because it just makes my blood boil that no one in DC understands America.

  • Cotour

    “Seriously, I gotta stop reading, because it just makes my blood boil that no one in DC understands America.”

    They understand very well, you are coming at this from a rational direction, which is the wrong direction as far as those in power are concerned with.

    Don’t think rationally if you want to understand, you must think backwards and upside down to understand where they are coming from.

    Pure Strategy, No Morality.

    They mean to break it all, raze it and push it all off the board in order to rebuild it anew in the manner that they in their Socialist utopian there is no America of substance to deal with model insist on.

    And all of these seemingly minor slights are all a part of the plan.

    Get mad, but don’t allow them to make you nuts.

  • David

    Looks like a preliminary settlement has been reached with the plaintiffs and their lawsuit. A personal and formal apology, guided tours for the plaintiffs, and a vague (imo) statement about training/retraining guards to follow the rules already established regarding protest or other expressions being “free speech.”

    This preliminary agreement will be reviewed by a judge and the parties involved.

    We don’t yet know what the specifics are regarding any actions forthcoming for the guards involved. Given rules surrounding federal employee rights for workplace incidents, I would expect any public announcement to be down the road.

  • David

    Cotour and Mr. Zimmerman:

    Your comments regarding the tragedies in Memphis and Michigan are both just not accurate (imo).

    There has been hours and hours of national coverage, reporting, discussions, etc. revolving around the murder of a black man by five black policemen in Memphis. From any conceivable angle, including the race of the officers involved.

    The latest in our never ending tide of mass murder gun violence that occurred in Michigan Tuesday evening, was covered extensively by all the cable/legacy news networks all evening and throughout the night. Including that the monster involved was black (once he had been identified).

  • Cotour

    David, respectfully:

    “The latest in our never ending tide of mass murder gun violence that occurred in Michigan Tuesday evening, was covered extensively by all the cable/legacy news networks all evening and throughout the night.”

    Keep track on how long the “Extensive” coverage and outrage goes on for in Michigan and exactly how the event is characterized. You will find it being essentially smoothed over, minimized and pushed into the past and forgotten about.

    That is my primary point, the Zman can answer for himself, the media initially reports on it because they have to, but the coverage is managed in an entirely different manner than if the shooter was of Caucasian heritage person. Caucasian = “white supremacy”.

    You even have policies in some cities / police departments that are banned from describing a perpetrator by their skin color. You can state their assumed sex, approximate height and weight, what they were wearing, what they were driving, but in some jurisdictions you may not state what the color of their skin is. That is thought to be racist.

    The selective reporting of material facts about someone who may well be a very dangerous person that poses a threat to everyone in the name of “Equity”. Make sense to you?

    Do or can the police abuse their power? What is the rule about power and the abuse there of? Is there or can there be a a bias against young black men? I would have to agree that there is to some degree both with and without cause. But I ask, how do we solve that problem? Reject and vilify the promotion of the traditional American family model that includes both a mother and a father in the home? Not in my opinion. And that is exactly what the radical Left promotes and insists on.

    But there are many on the radical Liberal Left that seek to further destroy the one thing that has the greatest effect on the behavior of both young men and the attitudes of police regarding them. All around, low standards is no standards.

    And that is a simple fact of life in America today. The media as well as the radical Left within government and politics is the American people’s (Especially black Americans) greatest enemy.

    The radical Left calls it “Equity” in an attempt to remedy history past and some attitudes today. It is a formula for chaos IMO.

    And the radical Left must have chaos to succeed.

  • David

    Cotour:

    Regarding Michigan State event, time will tell.

    Regarding the Memphis event, my only point concerned your questioning if “anyone had seen ANY coverage” was that there had indeed been fairly extensive coverage by the “mad dog media” in my opinion.

    BTW, “Mad Dog Media” sounds like an awesome name for a unique news source!

  • Cotour

    David:

    “Regarding the Memphis event, my only point concerned your questioning if “anyone had seen ANY coverage” was that there had indeed been fairly extensive coverage by the “mad dog media” in my opinion.”

    To my point about the nature of todays undeniably biased to the extreme Left “Mad Dog Media”. After the incident there was coverage, certainly, but I have not seen ANYTHING in the media since about it. Nothing about the history of the officers, who they are, do they have records themselves, and what “Equity” rules were bent that allowed these clearly abusive empowered police officers and their possible motives for doing what they did.

    Did they target this specific black young man?

    NOTHING. And that is my point.

    By this time in the Geroge Floyd event which went on for many, many weeks and which drove the 250 + riots that were enflamed and encouraged by the extensive coverage by the extreme Left in the media.

    I comb the media all day long and I have seen nothing about the incident since. And that is not by mistake.

    Five black police officers abuse and kill a young black man is of no use to the perverted and corrupt extreme Left Mad Dog Media who is allied with those who want to “Fundamentally change” America.

  • Jeff Wright

    And no mention of the Ohio derailment.
    Biden doesn’t care because he is a strike-breaking piece of trash—and only Tucker does much reporting because everyone else is a corporate sell out.

  • Cotour

    BA BOOM!

    How much does the truth cost in America today?

    $44 billion dollars.

    Who is the enemy of free speech in America?

    Many of those who are charged with protecting it.

    It is the nature of the power beast.

    Where does the only measure of hope lie?

    Within the construct of the Constitution, built for battle.

    But there are no guarantees.

  • Cotour

    This is the first story that I have seen relating to the Memphis beating death since it happened:

    And what does one of the defendant’s lawyers pull? The race card! We will see where that strategy goes.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11763479/Former-Memphis-officers-appear-court-death-Tyre-Nichols.html

    “Lawyer for one of the Memphis police officers charged with Tyre Nichols’ death plays the race card, saying ‘let’s not forget my client is a black man in America’ – as all five cops plead NOT GUILTY to murder”

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