Residents plan sit-in as response to pledge controversy

PAWTUCKET - Members of a local community activist group say they're planning a sit-in protest at Wednesday evening's meeting of the Pawtucket City Council in support of Joe Hart and his right to sit for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Dimitri Lyssikatos, a member of Community Response Rhode Island and a Pawtucket resident, said he expects about 20 to 30 people to show up and sit down during the Pledge of Allegiance, all to back the Cumberland resident and tell the City Council that it can't force people to stand for the pledge.

Hart said this week that he plans to sit again as the pledge is recited.

There was quite a stir last week after The Breeze reported that City Councilor Mark Wildenhain had halted a council meeting until Hart stood up for the pledge. Other media outlets then picked up the story, which prompted a big debate on the radio and social media sites about whether Hart was right in not standing.

Wildenhain told The Breeze Monday that he spoke with Council President David Moran and was instructed not to do anything to affect the start of Wednesday night's meeting. He said he doesn't plan to ask Hart to stand, but hopes he will stand out of respect for the flag and those who have fought to defend it.

"I think I've made my point," said Wildenhain. "I'm going to follow the instructions that the council president gave me and just move on from there."

Wildenhain said he's sorry about the firestorm of controversy that erupted after The Breeze story, but he said "I'm not sorry I spoke up," after learning a valuable lesson on civics.

As for if Hart chooses to again sit down, "If you choose not to give respect, then you deserve not to get it," said Wildenhain.

He said the entire week since the story came out has been difficult, but it got better when he heard from a 29-year-old tech sergeant in the U.S. Air Force who thanked him for sticking up for the flag and country.

Hart maintains that he has the right not to stand when the pledge is recited. He chooses not to stand not because he hates America or its flag, says Hart, but because he doesn't feel comfortable standing with council members who he says don't believe in what they're saying.

Lyssikatos told The Breeze that members of the Community Response Rhode Island group that Hart is a part of aren't unpatriotic because they're backing Hart's right not to stand in protest of the council's actions. Every citizen should support his right to free speech under the First Amendment, he said.

Though he himself chooses to stand for the pledge, said Lyssikatos, he agrees with Hart that council members are hypocrites for talking about freedom and then limiting residents' freedom on so many issues.

"We're not anti-flag, we're anti-council," he said. "We look at them as the tyrants up there."

Lyssikatos said that the group's past history of patriotism, with many members being part of the Oath Keepers group, "proves who we are."

According to the organization's website, the "Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to 'defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.'"

The Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union weighed in on the controversy last week. Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU, said in a letter that council members should be aware that Hart has "a clear constitutional right not to stand for the pledge," and "in light of some of the comments aimed at Mr. Hart for his conduct, a brief explanation of why protection of this right is important seems in order."

Brown said it has been more than 70 years since the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that the First Amendment protects individuals from being forced to salute the flag or say the pledge.

"That initial case involved the disciplining of students who were Jehovah's Witnesses, and who considered saluting the flag a form of idolatry," he said. "In one of the most cited quotes from a Supreme Court ruling, Justice Robert Jackson wrote in support of their First Amendment rights, 'If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."

According to Brown, there are many reasons - religious, moral, philosophical and political - why some individuals refuse to stand for the pledge.

"One of the fundamental principles the flag symbolizes is the freedom not to salute it," he said. "Compulsory patriotism is a disservice to what the flag represents. We hope that the City Council will forcefully and publicly reject any future efforts to intimidate members of the public who are exercising their First Amendment rights at City Council meetings."