Lawn Signs Legal Again in Pennsylvania

[Janice Rael]

Hey, the Pennsylvania Courts have ruled that lawn signs are legal again! It's now legal again to have a First Amendment right to put up lawn signs that other people can see! yay for free speech! May the chocolate of our enemies become stale and chalky. I said it! This is my E-lawn.

(please don't throw my thread into another forum thank you)

This is where I live, these folks are kind of neighbors of sorts.

Jewish family in fight with Abington neighbors can post anti-hate signs​

By Nicholas Malfitano
Aug 23, 2024

HARRISBURG – The Supreme Court has reversed a trial court injunction that prevented a Jewish family from erecting lawn signs in their backyard, signs which protested hostile and anti-Semitic behavior they allegedly experienced from their neighbors.

I didn't even know that lawn signs had been outlawed here! THEY WERE, though. Thankfully, a higher court said that it's okay to have lawn signs that people can see!

“Dr. Simon and Toby Galapo (appellants) own a home in Abington Township, Montgomery County, the rear yard of which borders the property of Frederick and Denise Oberholzer (appellees). Although the properties are separated by a creek, low-lying shrubs and some tall trees, the houses and yards remain visible to one another. In November 2014, a brewing feud between the neighbors over landscaping issues reached a boiling point, after Dr. Galapo confronted Mr. Oberholzer about a resurveyed property line and Mrs. Oberholzer responded by calling him a ‘f—king Jew,” Dougherty said.

“This prompted the Galapos in June 2015 to erect the first of many signs primarily displaying anti-hate and anti-racist messages ‘along the back tree-line directly abutting [the Oberholzers’] property line, pointed directly at [the Oberholzers’] house, and in direct sight of [other] neighbors’ houses.’ All told, the Galapos posted 23 signs over a years-long span, during which the neighbors continued to quarrel over other minor nuisances.”

... a majority contingent of the state Supreme Court found that the original injunction violated the Pennsylvania Constitution’s Free Speech Clause – and cited its own precedent in Willing v. Mazzacone, which had found that injunctions against speech are examples of unconstitutional prior restraint.

“The fact that one purpose of the Galapos’ signs was to engage in a ‘personal protest’ against the Oberholzers does not alter this conclusion. Surely, a protest was part of the motive behind the signs. But so what? Again, Article I, Section 7 [of the Pennsylvania Constitution] ‘specifically affirms the ‘invaluable right’ to the free communication of thoughts and opinions, and the right of ‘every citizen’ to ‘speak freely’ on ‘any subject’ so long as that liberty is not abused.’ Those sweeping terms necessarily include the right to use speech as a means of (peaceful) protest,” Dougherty said.

“What matters is whether the ‘speech is of public or private concern, as determined by all the circumstances of the case.’ ‘Speech deals with matters of public concern when it can be fairly considered as relating to any matter of political, social or other concern to the community, or when it is a subject of legitimate news interest; that is, a subject of general interest and of value and concern to the public.’ Further, the ‘arguably inappropriate or controversial character of a statement is irrelevant to the question whether it deals with a matter of public concern.”

In this case, Dougherty and his colleagues in the majority believe that it was.

“Here, it cannot seriously be disputed that the messages relayed by the Galapos’ signs are matters of public concern. Mrs. Oberholzer admitted to making an offensive, anti-Semitic remark to Dr. Galapo, which some might argue is ‘part of a broader, societal trend of hate and violence toward Jewish people.’ In response, the Galapos erected on their own lawn stationary signs decrying hatred, anti-Semitism and racism. We have no hesitation in finding ‘these are concerns of general interest to the Jewish community and the wider public,” Dougherty stated.

A lot of the lovely, carefully-manicured (by landscapers) lawns around here sport the same signs, such as "Hate Has No Home Here."

The Supreme Court majority further found that substantial privacy interests were not invaded in an intolerable fashion.

“The Galapos’ signs are stationed exclusively on their own property and they lack any coercive or other element that might implicate the Oberholzers’ privacy interests. Nor do the signs present any type of actionable, non-speech-based nuisance, like excessive illumination or loud noises. The signs are just that: signs. All homeowners at one point or another are forced to gaze upon signs they may not like on their neighbors’ property – be it ones that champion a political candidate, advocate for a cause, or simply express support or disagreement with some issue. If a single judge could suppress such speech any time an offended viewer invoked a generalized right to residential privacy, without proving more – specifically, that substantial privacy interests are being invaded in an essentially intolerable manner – it would mark the end to residential expression; after all, we cannot ignore that the Galapos have property rights too,” Dougherty said.

I have actually BEEN under a federal injunction on speech! It was at the abortuary in Cherry Hill, NJ, when Operation Rescue was blockading clinics in the early 1990s. A judge ordered limits on acceptable free speech that the antis (the people who are so upset by total strangers' safe legal abortions that they leave their nice homes and churches to go all the way to the abortion clinic to scream and yell at the patients and their companions, often displaying vivid, technicolor photos of aborted fetuses, because guilt trips are part of slutshaming) and the escorts (the volunteers like me who worked with the clinic to provide protection to patients and their companions so they could enter the facility and obtain abortions, pap smears, STD testing, breast exams, and birth control) and the clinic staff and all of us could say to each other.

The antis violated the injunction. We did not. Sometimes the Cherry Hill Police, who have to be outside the clinic because antis are violent and dangerous, would have to caution them not to break the injunction with any kind of specific speech. But we respected the injunction, so to drown out the hateful screams of the fetus fetishists who harass abortion clinic patients, we yelled "GOOD MORNING!"

It was an absolute circus outside of the clinics that Operation Rescue invaded with their busloads of imported, outraged slutshamers and their kids. The antis swarmed each car as it tried to enter the driveway in Cherry Hill. The judge later told them they could not use their bodies to block cars in the driveway. So they screamed and yelled horrible, unhelpful things to the patients and companions, and we clinic escorts yelled and sang the words "GOOD MORNING! GOOD MORNING TO YOU! GOOD MORNING" creating a sound barrier to cover the calls of "Murderer!" and "Baby Killer!" and "God Loves Your Baby!" We also sang TV and radio jingles and nonsense words.

Free speech was protected by actual uniformed police officers enforcing a court order.

I also spent some time in the 2000s as an advocate for the First Amendment right to separation between religion and government.

I am super glad that it's legal to have lawn signs again in Pennsylvania.