A Pennsylvania man put up Halloween decorations around his property. He had no idea they would unleash the horrors of government jawboning.
Mark, whose real name is being withheld, is a homeowner in Bristol Borough, a suburb near Philadelphia. He decorated his home with a small graveyard, two monster scarecrows, and five mannequins hanging from a large tree on his property. One additional mannequin was lashed to the tree. The faux bodies were wrapped in black plastic secured with duct tape.
Now local officials are haunting Mark.
At an October 12 borough council meeting, a neighbor complained about Mark's decorations, concerned the display looked too close to lynching. Karla Scott said the decorations are "very offensive, not just to the black people in the community, but the community as a whole." Scott told FOX 29 that her "mind went back to what my ancestors went through being hung from trees with nooses around their neck." (In the televised story, the reporter gives a trigger warning and then blurs the very decorations viewers are supposed to judge as either offensive or old-fashioned spooky fun.)
After Scott voiced her concerns, Council President Ralph DiGuiseppe said Mark had broken no ordinance and that Mark told the borough he would not take the decorations down. "They're just Halloween decorations," Mark told the Bucks County Courier Times. "I think it's been blown out of proportion."
Despite acknowledging that Mark had violated no ordinance, DiGuiseppe noted a zoning inspector nevertheless visited his house immediately after the decorations went up.
"Our borough inspector did stop there and talk to him. But we were unsuccessful….[Mark] feels they're Halloween decorations, and he won't take them down," DiGuiseppe told Scott at the meeting. DiGuiseppe then turned to another official who said, "We'll continue our efforts."
The decorations have divided the community, with some residents saying they're simply Halloween decorations and others saying they're racially insensitive. After receiving a complaint from a resident, the local NAACP chapter said in a statement on Facebook, "Something can be legally permissible and still be profoundly harmful." The statement also called for "continued engagement by borough leadership and voluntary reconsideration of the display. This is not about restricting Halloween celebrations or freedom of expression. It is about historical awareness, empathy, and respect for our neighbors."
But Mark's insistence that he would not take them down hasn't been respected by the borough. He was also contacted by Bristol Borough Manager James Dillon and other members of the council, according to Fox News Digital, which also did not publish any pictures of the display. Mark again said he would not take the decorations down. When the mayor of Bristol Borough, Frank Peranteau, reached out to him, Mark invited the mayor to have dinner with his family to discuss the matter. In an email to Reason, Peranteau said he wasn't there to try and change Mark's mind and "found him to be a genuinely caring person with no signs of prejudice."
Nevertheless, things get spooky when government officials won't take no for an answer when contacting a law-abiding resident to "voluntarily" take down his constitutionally protected expression on his own property. This behavior by borough leadership and staff looks very much like jawboning, which is when government officials try to chill private citizens from exercising their constitutional rights through pressure or indirect threats.
While Scott and other community members may prefer there be a rule to prevent such decorations, an ordinance banning "offensive" lawn displays would be dead on arrival, constitutionally speaking. It would be viewpoint discrimination and a direct violation of the First Amendment.
Mark says he may have considered removing the display if Scott would have approached him and explained how she felt, according to Peranteau. "He told me that he was upset at the way things were handled in the beginning and he may have considered removing the display then had it been different," the mayor said, "but it was a matter of principle at that point."
Talking with your neighbor may resolve more than summoning government ghouls.
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