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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsMayor orders police to remove man who wouldn't stand for Pledge of Allegiance
Winter Garden Mayor John Rees ordered a man to leave the city commission meeting Thursday night because he refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
"I just said, 'Either stand or go in the hallway.' He wouldn't," said Rees, 65, who was elected to a third, three-year term in March. "It wasn't premediated. I just reacted. It hit me. I said it. I gave him an option...Life will go on."
Rees said he considered the man's refusal to stand for the invocation a ceremonial prayer that opens the city's public meetings and the Pledge of Allegiance to be disrespectful. "I did not make him stand for the prayer," Rees said. "But the Pledge? Even school kids stand. So I told him, 'You have two choices: You can stand or go outside.' "
Police Chief George A. Brennan then approached the man and asked, "What are you going to do?"
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-mayor-tosses-man-for-not-standing-for-pledge-of-20140829,0,80941.story
annabanana
(52,791 posts)Unfit for office.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)OriginalGeek
(12,132 posts)Unworthy of his position.
DFW
(54,436 posts)hobbit709
(41,694 posts)hunter
(38,326 posts)We were Jehovah's Witnesses, then Quaker.
(My mom couldn't stay out of politics, which got her in trouble with the Witnesses, which is how we ended up Quaker...)
But even if this guy simply didn't feel like standing up the mayor and the police chief were fascist assholes.
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)whistler162
(11,155 posts)he was after.
"Though Rees said he did not know Richardson by name, he recognized him from previous meetings as the man who sits in the front row and then leaves after the invocation and pledge. "He doesn't come to the meetings because he cares about the city," Rees said."
steve2470
(37,457 posts)whistler162
(11,155 posts)who sued a family because their dog bit him. When asked what provoked the incident he said, "I don't know why the dog bit me. I always walk the same way and I've been poking the dog with my walking stick for months and the dog never so much as snapped at me. So I've no idea why the dog up and bit me this time."
The idiot resident was playing a game and finally got the desired response.
Baitball Blogger
(46,757 posts)This is a First Amendment issue. He has every right to sit through the prayer and Pledge of Allegiance, and then leave. He is obviously following a cause within the parameters of the law.