The Log Cabin Republican and the Council on Islamic American Relations-LA have issued statement condemning the anti-Semitic, homophobic rant at Monday’s special Anaheim City Council meeting by gadfly William Fitzgerald.
Here’s the Log Cabin Republicans press statement:
Log Cabin Republicans Strongly Denounce Hate Speech in Anaheim
Mr. Mayor – Free speech is not Hate Speech
The Log Cabin Republicans of Orange County Strongly denounce the anti-Semitic Attacks and Hate Speech allowed to be expressed this week during the Anaheim City Council Meeting.
Anti-Semitic and Hate Speech Targeted at Anaheim City Councilman (click here)
We urge Mayor Tom Tait to immediately stop referring to these attacks as free speech. Hate speech is not free speech. We urge all Republicans to contact the Mayor and ask him to immediately provide decorum at meetings and put an end to the attacks on the Jewish and Gay Communities. He can be reached at ttait@anaheim.net
A rally is planned for next Tuesday at Anaheim City Hall just prior to the City Council meeting. Please attend and help us urge Mayor Tait to Stop the Hate.
October 8th – 4:30 pm
Anaheim City Hall
200 South Anaheim Blvd
And from CAIR-LA:
CAIR-LA condemns anti-Semitic attacks on Anaheim city councilman
The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) today condemned a series of anti-Semitic remarks targeting an Anaheim City Councilman earlier this week.
During a public comment session at a Monday morning council meeting, an Anaheim resident spewed vicious slurs against Councilman Jordan Brandman. In his tirade against Brandman, William Dennis Fitzgerald blamed the Holocaust on Germany’s Jewish population.
His bigoted comments also characterized Jews as “evil” and “scheming.”
SEE: Anaheim resident spews anti-Semitic remarks at city councilman
“A person’s religion or race should never be vilified because of political differences or otherwise,” said CAIR-LA’s Executive Director Hussam Ayloush. “We stand in solidarity with Councilman Brandman and the Jewish community in condemning this hateful and discriminatory act.”
In addition, CAIR-LA calls upon the city council to issue a statement rejecting such hate speech in the strongest terms.
The Council had met to discuss a proposed modification to the process for setting the agenda for council meetings.
CAIR is America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.
It bears mentioning that William Fitzgerald cannot be construed as a supporter of Tom Tait by any stretch of the imagination, and I’ve no doubt Tom was as horrified as anyone by those comments. Fitzgerald is a disturbed individual who has launched his scuds at Tom Tait for years, as well.
At the same time, a tone has been allowed to develop in the council chambers since last year, and it is a mobbish tone characterized by hooting and jeering and booing aimed at those who disagree with the mayor and agree with the council majority. This atmosphere is a deterrent to regular Anaheim citizens making use of public comments if they happen to agree with the council majority on an issue. Most people are anxious or fearful of public speaking under the best of circumstances, will certainly not take to the podium knowing they’ll be heckled by a goon squad.
Mr. Fitzgerald is mentally incompetent and Amin David intellectually defunct. These two control freaks are incessantly bitter and must publicly apologize to Council Member Jordan Brandman for the vindictive and slanderous defamation.
As a Republican I am sicken to see our city not stand up against hate and mean people. When an elected official is not willing to do the right thing, they should step down. Shame on Mayor Tait to let evil happen and then blame his lawyer. You have reached an all time low. Please resign and stop damaging our city. You and your actions are not welcome in the Republican Party. Nothing he does makes sense. To allow hatred of Jews, gays or anyone in the name of free speech is evil.
“To allow hatred of Jews, gays or anyone in the name of free speech is evil.”
No, it’s not evil; it’s American. It’s what we do every damn day.
We do not, EVER, use the government to censor speech or ideas we don’t agree with.
That is the foundational concept underlying each and everyone of our liberties. It is not to screwed with, particularly to score political points in freaking Anaheim.
Whoa whoa whoa. Seriously? Free speech is not hate speech? Are you people trying to get the city sued?
This isn’t something that’s handled by a gavel at a city council meeting. If you want to overturn 200 years of case law addressing exactly this issue, you don’t do it through sloganeering at the local level. If we really want to call “hate speech” unworthy of public expression, that’s a national debate. Holding the Mayor of Anaheim as the gatekeeper to Constitutional law in this country is absurd.
This is basic, BASIC, stuff here. Why the Lincolns are getting involved is just shockingly stupid. Really? We’re going to politicize this?
Recent case in LA: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzobT3prOt5WVzZWenkwbEVvdEk/edit?usp=sharing
“While the City Council has a right to keep its meetings on topic and moving forward, it cannot sacrifice political speech to a formula of civility.”
Unless Fitzgerald went over his time limit or started shouting from the audience, Anaheim had better have an army of lawyers behind the Mayor’s gavel. There has to be an actual disturbance in the meeting in order to censor comments directed at a public official. If the Lincolns think otherwise, perhaps they should be footing the bill for the taxpayers, because it ain’t gonna be cheap.
This is what the Lincoln Club ought to focus on (kudos to Matt for calling it out): “and it is a mobbish tone characterized by hooting and jeering and booing aimed at those who disagree with the mayor and agree with the council majority.”
You want to run a public meeting and discourage a-holes like Fitzgerald, you apply the same rules to everyone. If you run the place like Jerry Springer, well, then you get Jerry Springer.
The answer is yes.
The city, and me as a taxpayer, are willing to be sued for standing -up and doing the right thing. A court should never dictate morality.
The Mayor should resign if he thinks its more important to stay out of court versus protecting the people of Anaheim.
And the court wouldn’t. They’d just have you cut him a check and pay his legal fees.
How big should the check be? One million? Ten? A hundred?
Taking money to shut this idiot up at the expense of a child’s first opportunity to read or to take a police officer off the street is just stupid.
Fitzgerald is an idiot. You don’t defeat an idiot by acting like one in return.
“If you run the place like Jerry Springer, well, then you get Jerry Springer.”
Then you should call on Tait to stop running the place like Jerry Springer. It’s his supporters doing the heckling, after all. His wife Julie is right there with them, booing and heckling! If the Mayor’s wife is acting that way, people are going to assume the Mayor is OK with it.
I think Tom Tait has let a mob atmosphere take control at council meetings. At the same time, I’m not impressed that a group like CAIR is upset. CAIR is shady group with ties to terrorists, so who are they to get upset about this?
I think Ryan is TOTALLY missing the point. While some are calling for a halt to Fitzgerald’s First Amendment Rights, which is not and should not happen, the travesty here is the way in which the Mayor handled it.
And it is a pattern sir. An ugly, abusive pattern to which the Mayor is a party. When his family and staffers sit in the audience and jeer/cheer loudly along with the mob how can you not draw the conclusion that he is somehow condoning it? At best you could say he is a silent party to it.
When the mob at Council jeers and taunts speakers, staff and his colleagues it is those individuals themselves that repeatedly have to call on the crowd to stop – the Mayor never lifts a finger, says a word or tries to restrain them.
It is that inaction that has allowed things to escalate into a cesspool of hate and disrespect. What is the saying…When good people do nothing? We have had ample proof of that for months and months.
See the last section of my comment, i.e. Springer.
The point is that people, real actually live red blooded americans, think that the Mayor of Anaheim can actually interrupt public comment to censure content of speech.
This isn’t new unexplored legal territory. This is old, basic, settled case law. Anyone who has graduated high school since 1964 ought to be able to tell you how profoundly unAmerican it is to demand either a resignation or an active role in public censorship from the mayor (or any other member of council for that matter.)
Ryan: so if Fitzgerald or someone else said F-word for 3 minutes, you’re saying nothing could be done?
How about, as another commenter suggested, turning off the microphone?
Matt, read the case I posted (if you haven’t), then ask yourself the same question. Shouldn’t be too hard to find about 50 more, but this is from the 9th Circuit, recent, and speaks to the point you just raised.
If it were for 3 minutes, provided it was actually directed at the council, he could be silenced for being repetitive and delaying the meeting– not for cursing.
So it would be equally allowable for council to cuss at each other during a meeting?
The council makes their own rules for their own behavior. It isn’t subjected to the same protections as speech from the public podium.
I understand the point you make concerning free speech. But certainly residents are desirous of public decorum as well?
We need more republican groups to come out and condemn Tait for his over two years of hell in Anaheim. I believe it was not until the Reps came out didi Tait pay attention. god forbid the Reps expose him for who he is. But don’t you worry, the precious little lincoln club will stand by him and likely help him launder money for the next election because his dear ‘ol dad help create the organization in OC. Blind faith and loyalty for Tait- the trust fund baby with no morals.