The disgrace on Capitol steps

Backers of 44 lose control

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Amendment 44 backers would like your vote to legalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana. And if you disagree, they expect you to shut up about it.

That, in a nutshell, is the message that members of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), who back Amendment 44, dispensed Friday at the Capitol when they tried to shout down some of the state's top law enforcement officers and the governor.

The group that included Gov. Bill Owens, Attorney General John Suthers and Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener had a permit to gather on the west steps of the Capitol to oppose the marijuana initiative. But that wasn't good enough for SAFER. Its members became progressively more raucous as the event went on, until by the time Suthers spoke his voice was nearly buried in the din.

Owens was justifiably irate and had harsh words for the protesters. "In my almost three decades of public service," he said afterward, "I have never seen a time when people with a permit for the west steps of the Capitol couldn't be heard. These people in green shirts remind me of their predecessors in brown shirts."

Owens was referring to the green shirts worn by SAFER and, of course, the brown shirts worn by storm troopers in the 1930s. Hyperbole? Sure, but disrupting speeches is nothing to make light of, either. It's a direct assault on the First Amendment and is a routine tactic of bullies less interested in civil give-and-take than in forcing their views on others.

SAFER leader Mason Tvert and his noisy band of green-shirted marijuana enthusiasts did neither themselves nor their cause any favors Friday.