Moralizing showboaters are why SLO County board had to restrict public comment | Opinion

Good news for anyone who cares about civil discourse: The San Luis Obispo County Government Center is now a porn-free zone.

On Tuesday, the board voted 3-2 to prohibit speakers from using the county’s audio-visual system during public comment sessions. That means no more graphic videos with sexual content — or any other type of videos, for that matter.

The decision was in response to the uproar over the board’s July 9 meeting, when speakers who opposed passage of a resolution recognizing Pride Month showed grossly inappropriate video and images described as “porn” by some in attendance.

The content was intended to serve as a cautionary tale — a warning of what might happen in San Luis Obispo County if LGBTQ+ Pride events were encouraged here.

“By accepting Pride Month ... you are bringing this to our community,” one person said.

The material included a video of an LGBTQ+ festival in San Francisco, complete with full-frontal male nudity and oral sex, slides that purported to show breasts and genitals of patients in the process of gender-reassignment surgery and cartoon images of sex acts.

Debbie Arnold: ‘I’m almost appreciative’

The new ban on videos may be disappointing to some — it’s become increasingly common for speakers to use county equipment to show maps, photos and others visuals — but don’t blame the supervisors who voted in favor of the change.

The fault lies with those who thought it was good idea to use the board chambers to show X-rated content not only to those in attendance, but also to viewers live-streaming the meeting at home. (The county later blurred out some of the images on the recording that was posted on its website.)

The presentation was intended to shock the audience for the express purpose of sowing distrust of the local LGBTQ+ community.

What’s more, the presenters shamelessly used the First Amendment as cover. And in a stunning display of poor judgment, Supervisor Debbie Arnold — the chair of the board and its most conservative member — fell for it.

“The presenters were offended by the material as well. That’s why they were here presenting, because they had been for months trying to present or talk about it, or bring it to the public’s attention that these were things going on in public,” she said Tuesday. “I’m almost appreciative that, you know, it was maybe being brought to us in a way that was going to get our attention and, boy, did it get our attention.”

In other words, it’s OK to show something grossly inappropriate as long as it’s done for the “right” reason.

Arnold ultimately voted against the ban on using county A/V equipment, as did Supervisor John Peschong. He said he believed the restrictions went “a little too far” — even though he walked out of the July 9 meeting when the graphic images were shown.

Liberal majority supports change

Fortunately, the board’s liberal-leaning majority was not taken in by the false claim that restricting visual content would violate free speech rights.

Local governments are under no legal obligation to allow videos and slides to be shown during public comment and, as we see now, they take a risk when they do permit imagery that has not been pre-screened.

As an alternative, the county could review all submissions prior to public comment, but that would add to staff’s work load and put the county in the position of having to determine whether or not the material meets the legal definition of obscenity — which places it in legal jeopardy if speakers disagree.

Declaring A/V equipment off-limits for all public speakers — regardless of their political leaning — is a practical way to avoid subjecting audiences to offensive material while also protecting the county from lawsuits. (An exception will be made for formal appeal hearings, to give applicants and appellants the opportunity to include slides and videos in their presentations.)

Free speech rights have not been denied; members of the public will still have the right to address the board on a wide range of topics and they can bring photographs to share with the board. They also are free to send lengthy written comments, photos, maps, etc., to the supervisors.

Public comment was never intended to be am elaborate show-and-tell. Yet that’s what it turned into when a group of self-appointed guardians of morality took it upon themselves to “educate” the public by sharing sexually graphic images without any regard to who might be watching.

It may have only happened once, but it was so egregious that it could not be ignored.

Supervisors Bruce Gibson, Dawn Ortiz-Legg and Jimmy Paulding did the right thing by ensuring that it won’t happen again.