God Bless the USSA

The only thing worse than a pseudo-patriot is a pseudo-patriot who might also happen to be a New York Yankees fan.

Before I get to the pseudo-patriot part, I’ll begin by saying that I’ve met many Yankees fans over the years and only two of them have left a positive impression on me. One of them was a former colleague in a volunteer organization of which I was a member several years ago and the other is a current coworker. The others have, sadly, been whiny, self-absorbed, arrogant pricks.

In 2006, I became accustomed to listening to Yankees fans lament about how Major League Baseball was somehow “broken” because my beloved St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series and the Yankees were eliminated from World Series contention by the Detroit Tigers three games to one. New York fans seemed to reason that since the Yankees were...well...um...the Yankees, it was simply their divine right to be handed the Commissioner’s Trophy year after year.

As for pseudo-patriots, it’s a term that I use to refer to people whose idea of being a “true” American is little more than measuring the size of their American flag against that of the next person—even if that flag was manufactured in China.

Their superficial Americanism can be illustrated through their insistence that everyone in the country should be Christian because the founding fathers were Christian; their CD collection is chock-full of every known I-love-America-and-I’ll-kick-your-ass-if-you-don’t country song; they wear certain colors on certain days to signify their patriotism and question others’ patriotism if those same colors are not worn on certain days. If we were to get right down to it, however, their true love of their country is little more than image with a little religious zealotry tossed in for flavor.

When you mix the two, you might get the mindset which would create something like the policy that has—unbeknownst to me until now—been in place at Yankee Stadium for quite some time.

It turns out that Yankee management has a rule which states that fans must stay in their seats while the song “God Bless America” plays on the loudspeakers. If you challenge the policy, you can be ejected from the stadium. One fan happened to challenge it, was ejected, and he’s now suing.

Bloomberg’s Thom Weidlich reports:

A New York City man who roots for the Boston Red Sox sued the New York Yankees and the city’s police department saying he was ejected from the old Yankee Stadium in August because he tried to use the restroom during the singing of “God Bless America.”

Bradford Campeau-Laurion, a 30-year-old resident of Astoria, Queens, said he was the victim of religious and political discrimination. The New York Civil Liberties Union sued today on his behalf in federal court in Manhattan.

“New York’s finest have no business arresting someone for trying to go to the bathroom at a politically incorrect moment,” Donna Lieberman, executive director of the civil-liberties group, said in a statement.

Campeau-Laurion said he was stopped by an officer on his way to the restroom during the seventh-inning stretch and was thrown out of the stadium when he tried to keep walking.

[...]

“As he walked toward the tunnel leading to the concourse, a uniformed New York City police officer put up his hands and mumbled something to Mr. Campeau-Laurion,” according to the complaint.

He understood the policeman as indicating he couldn’t leave during “God Bless America.” When he tried to move past the officer, the policeman grabbed his arm and said, “He’s out” to another officer, who twisted Campeau-Laurion’s left arm behind his back, he said. They ejected him from the stadium, according to the complaint.

[...]

Unlike most other Major League Baseball teams, the Yankees seek to prevent fans from moving during the playing of “God Bless America,” according to the complaint. The lawsuit also challenges that policy. Off-duty uniformed police officers at the games are paid by the Yankees, according to the complaint and Browne.

[...]

“It devalues patriotism as a whole when you force people to participate in patriotic acts,” he said. “It devalues the freedom we fought for in the first place.”

“I consider myself to be a good American citizen,” Campeau-Laurion said.

••••

Since I’m not a lawyer, I won’t attempt to analyze the possible legal outcome of this suit. Fortunately, in 2007, law professor Howard M. Wasserman did. On his blog, Professor Wasserman explains that “[t]here are two separate constitutional issues[:] The first is whether the Yankees, by virtue of controlling a publicly owned stadium, are somehow state actors in dictating what fans can and cannot do in the stadium.” Professor Wasserman also explains that this point is important because “the First Amendment only limits government, not private entities; the Yankees, as an ostensibly private organization, can exercise total control over what fans can say.”

So, are the Yankees really that “private”? It depends on how things are viewed and what precedent is used. Cases such as Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority and Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association will come into play. For example, Professor Wasserman says that, if we use Brentwood, “this test might look at features such as who owns the ballpark, the terms on which the team is using the ballpark, and who is making and enforcing the relevant rules. For example, it may be relevant that Yankee Stadium is owned by the City of New York but used and controlled exclusively by the team. It also might be important that the Yankees contract with the City to use off-duty police officers as security guards, who help in blocking off the exits.” He also mentioned that—as of his 2007 writing—the survival of that opinion would be important. As of this writing (April 2009), I haven’t been able to find any reversal.

The second issue that Professor Wasserman discusses is the First Amendment “violation”: Does keeping a fan in his/her seat during “God Bless America” violate their First Amendment rights? Wasserman writes:

One form of symbolic counter-speech is nonparticipation in a ritual or ceremony that honors and affirms a symbol. By leaving the seating area, a fan declines to participate in the ceremony or ritual (the singing of the GBA), thereby expressing his dissent from that symbol. The Yankees policy of keeping fans in place thus eliminates one form of symbolic counter-speech.

The key to the free speech argument is that forcing fans to stay put arguably coerces their participation in the ritual, in violation of the First Amendment protection against compelled expression recognized in Barnette v. W. Va. Bd. of Educ. (1943)...The do-not-leave policy is content-neutral and likely valid as a restriction on the time, place, and manner of speech. The Yankees are not trying to keep fans in place out of disagreement with or dislike for the message fans send by leaving their seats; they only are trying to keep non-particiating fans from disrupting those who do want to participate in the ritual.

Two thoughts on this. First, there are many ways to decline to participate in a ceremony or ritual that should be protected beyond simply not singing while remaining in place. Not singing sends one message; leaving sends a somewhat different (or more overt) message of dissent; turning my back to the flag my send a different (and even more overt) message of dissent. All of them should be protected under Barnette unless the government/Yankees can show that one form affects its interests differently.

There’s a major problem with the Yankees’ argument that a “disruption” is caused by those leaving their sections (yes, I said section—not seat), according to Wasserman:

In general, it is hard to see how one (or even a few individuals) walking out “disrupts” a stadium of 55,000 people who want to stand at attention and sing...The chains are up in the main corridor, by the exit tunnel, and some fans can be seen standing in the corridor waiting for the song to end. This means that I can get up from my seat, walk out of my row (climbing across my neighbors, if I have to), and walk up the aisle, presumably while talking with my companion—all pretty disruptive, I would guess. I can do everything but walk out the tunnel to the kosher hot dog stand, away from (and out of the line of sight of) those who remain in their seats. Of course, walking completely away from the seating area ought to be least disruptive to those remaining by their seats and singing. So the argument that “fans who want to sing have rights, too” strikes me as a straw man; my leaving does not interfere with the ability of anyone else to sing and otherwise participate in this patriotic ritual.

The point is that the Yankees are not really trying to prevent disruption of others fans caused by my moving around during the song, because such disruption is, realistically, non-existent. The Yankees are trying to prevent disruption caused by the message I send by leaving during the song. The policy now is no longer content-neutral, because it is tied to dislike for the message a fan wants to send by his nonparticipation.

••••

Now that the legal side of this policy has been presented, I’ll attempt to analyze the cultural side of it.

I’ll start by stating the obvious: there’s a sick irony in this story, given that the Yankees’ management has resorted to implementing a Stalinist policy under the guise of loving one’s country. When you force patriotism, how patriotic is it?

The argument will no doubt be made that many men and women have died for the freedoms that we have in the United States and that we should honor them. That is true; we should honor them. Are we really honoring them by enforcing rules that would otherwise be commonplace in authoritarian countries which these brave men and women originally fought against? Are we showing our love of freedom by adopting the very totalitarian beliefs that were previously considered worth standing up to?

If these people died for freedom, it should be just that: freedom. In this case, the Yankees are taking a noble idea—love for a “free” country—and bastardizing it so that it’s actually counter to what the concept is.

We can call those who would walk out during “God Bless America” many things: ungrateful; ignorant; impolite; clueless; and yes, even unpatriotic. Calling them that is our right as Americans because we have the freedom to do so. When we attempt to force others to see things our way or like the things that we like, we’re no longer supporting freedom.

If anything, we’re showing that we’re more unpatriotic than those who would have the nerve to walk out during a song like “God Bless America.”

References

Wasserman, Howard. “Yankee Stadium, God Bless America, and the First Amendment.” Sports Law Blog. 18 May 2007.

Weidlich, Thom. “New York Man Sues Over Ejection From Yankees Game.” Bloomberg. 15 Apr. 2009.

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