Protest ban gets conditional OK

Protesters outside the front door are commonplace for medical researchers at the University of Utah.

The Utah-based Primate Freedom Project targets four researchers because they "have made the horrendous decision to use nonhuman primates in invasive research," according to the group's Web site.

"They are getting some pretty intimidating and targeting picketing, boycotting and threatening of their private residences," Salt Lake County Council Chairman Mark Crockett said.

The Salt Lake County Council on Tuesday gave unanimous conditional approval to an ordinance that would block political protests outside homes.

Anyone found picketing within 100 feet of a residence in unincorporated Salt Lake County when the protests are targeted at an individual living there could be cited with a class B misdemeanor.

The ordinance must go before two different votes of the County Council for final approval.

Salt Lake City approved a similar ban last year.

The Primate Freedom Project said the city and proposed county ordinance is an attempt to thwart free speech.

"Protesting outside of residences is a justifiable and legitimate means of social change," according to a statement from the Primate Freedom Project. "We feel that if more home demonstrations occurred, we would have a society that is less complicit in atrocious activities."

Crockett said the ordinance is an attempt to strike a balance between homeowners' rights and the free speech protections protesters enjoy.

"Certainly we want to maximize the public's ability to protest generally, and would not want to do anything to infringe on that right on public property," Crockett said. "But when it's targeting individual homes and lives, that's a different matter."

The group is "free to protest at the university," U. spokeswoman Coralie Alder said. But picketing outside researchers' homes is crossing the line, she said.

"They are intimidating and harassing our researchers in their homes," Alder said. "We will do everything we can to protect our researchers."

Councilman Joe Hatch, a self-described First Amendment absolutist, said the ordinance does not violate the Bill of Rights.

"The First Amendment is not only the right to speak but it is the right for you to choose to not hear my speech," Hatch said. "If you go into your house, you should have the right to turn off what you don't want to hear, and this is a method of turning that off."

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