Gay Today: World

Tampa's Case against
3 Anti-Bush Protesters Gets Dropped

Compiled By GayToday

Activist Bob Kunst of Oral Majority and an outspoken critic of Mr.Bush, praised the decision of the state's attorney to drop the charges against the Tampa Three

Tampa, Florida-The case against three anti-Bush protesters arrested at a June speech by George W. Bush at Legends Field, has been dropped by State attorney Mark Ober. One of the protesters, Mauricio Rosas had carried a sign asking Bush to proclaim June as Gay Pride month, following President Clinton's example in 2000.

The other two arrestees, Janis M. Lentz and Sonja Haught, are members of the Oral Majority, whose president is veteran activist and Democratic Florida primary gubernatorial candidate Bob Kunst. They were calling attention to the theft of Election 2000 by Bush family operatives.

The Tampa Tribune quoted Kunst's praise for the city's decision not to prosecute. "Tampa has taken a step in the right direction," he said, adding that the First Amendment rights of the Oral Majority members had been violated. His organization is looking into the possibility of a suit, Kunst told GayToday. "Wherever we've picketed Bush, police have intervened to keep us at a distance," he said. "Something's fishy about that."

The arrests at Legends Field had originally been thought to have been instigated by a secret service agent who complained that the anti-Bush pickets were "out of hand." Caught on video, however, the instigator turned out instead to be a Republican activist and lobbyist for the Florida Baptist Convention, part of a group called the "Rally Response" team. The Baptist zealot had not been authorized to issue trespassing warnings.

Police had told the demonstrators they must relinquish their home-made signs if they wished to remain and to hear George W. Bush speak. Sonja Haught was shown on video asking why she had to give up her anti-Bush signs when so many others were, in fact, being allowed to hold onto their pro-Bush signs. This segment of the video raised questions as to whether she and her anti-Bush companions were being ejected only because of their signs, inasmuch as there had been no indication of untoward behavior on their parts.

The protesters were thus subjected to the taunts of a pro-Bush crowd and the kicking of dirt in their faces. An 84-year old companion accompanying the two women was pushed to the ground and injured.

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Police, said Kunst, had prevented the Oral Majority protesters from peacefully expressing their viewpoints "at a public event held on public property."

"This should have never happened to begin with," gay activist Mauricio Rosas told St. Petersburg Times reporters. "The police should have protected us. The police were used as pawns by the politicians in charge."