This editorial is about a very American thing – the modest yard sign. The simple act of making or purchasing a sign to share political views or demand some kind of action or display an inspiring message is about as American as it gets. All one needs is some form of a stake and the wherewithal to speak freely on a piece of cardboard.
Posting that sign is a humble yet protected right to free speech.
But it wasn’t that long along – pre-February 1994, in fact – when this right to a yard sign was at risk.
Margaret Gilleo of Ladue, Missouri, was an unlikely First Amendment crusader who refused to allow her rights to be trampled on, even if neighbors questioned her patriotism or her propriety over her Persian Gulf antiwar sign. Gilleo died on June 8. She was 84.
In 1991, she told the The St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “I consider myself extremely patriotic. I love this country. I love the flag, and I would never burn it. But I reserve the right to dissent.”
And dissent she did.
The story began in December 1990, when the U.S. was on the verge of the Persian Gulf War. Gilleo expressed her opposition to the conflict with a 3-by-2-foot sign that read: “Say no to war in the Persian Gulf. Call Congress now.”
Boy, did she catch flak for it. Her sign was stolen, and a replacement was yanked up and tossed in the yard. When she complained to the police, they told her that she had violated a local ordinance that forbade virtually all yard signs. The City Council voted unanimously against her, even though it could make exceptions.
So Gilleo did that very American thing when channels close – she sued. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, Gilleo filed a lawsuit against Ladue. The case took a winding road to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments in February 1994. That June, the high court issued a unanimous decision in support of Gilleo. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his opinion that “residential signs are an unusually cheap and convenient form of communication,” and that restricting them in the arbitrary manner outlined in Ladue’s law violated the First Amendment.
“A special respect for individual liberty in the home has long been part of our culture and our law,” Stevens said. “That principle has special resonance when the government seeks to constrain a person’s ability to speak there.”
Individual liberty. These days, we tend to hear these words in conversations about abortion or gun rights. But in the early 1990s, discourse around a yard sign riled up neighbors. Comparatively, this now seems kind of innocent. A return to a simpler time.
When she filed the lawsuit, Gilleo was working at the nonprofit St. Louis Economic Conversion Project, which sought to teach people about the hazards of the military-industrial complex and to divert U.S. military spending into other areas. She was a mother of three, had previously taught music, then earned master’s degrees in business administration and theology. She later taught comparative religion and philosophy.
But she was also a neighbor who just wanted to stick a sign in her yard, sharing her concern about war.
Through her ordeal, she made enemies and friends. But she held onto her First Amendment right to say what she felt and thought. In the scale of history, Gilleo’s act may seem small or minor. But on this Fourth of July weekend, we’re celebrating her understated act that was both personal and decisive.
When we see yard signs, we’ll think of her as an American with much grace and fortitude who took the proper steps to secure her First Amendment right.
Like a series of flashbacks, we’re thinking of all the yard signs with shared values and ideas across yards, in windows and on street posts across the country that came behind Gilleo, in the many years since SCOTUS’ decision.
