I agree that there is nothing necessarily dishonorable about “civil disobedience” and there are times, such as these, where that may be the only course of action when a person, or group of citizens, are trying to change a law or legislation.
I looked up the definition of “civil disobedience” (as I can’t always trust my memory). The definition is: “Refusal to obey civil laws in an effort to induce change in governmental policy or legislation, characterized by the use of passive resistance or other nonviolent means.”
The definition of “civil law” is, “The body of laws of a state or nation dealing with the rights of private citizens..
Notre Dame has its own “private” rules. It appears that the protest Alan Keyes participated in took place on “private property”. He was not breaking a “civil law”, per se, he was trespassing on private property.
The protest wasn’t wrong. The message wasn’t wrong. The way they went about protesting was. Again, that’s just my opinion. I don’t like it when the left-wing wackos disrespect private property in order to get their message across so I’d be a hypocrite if I said it was o.k. as long as the protest was one that I agreed with.
It is one thing to get attention for one’s cause. It is quite another to get the wrong kind of attention. The MSM will play this as a small group of wackos who trespassed and had to be arrested. I do not see how that in any way helps our cause.
A good angle I hadn’t considered in all honesty... I had begun to when I mentioned the outside of the property — that property adjoining where it is public.
What I would encourage and I do know is happening are the students, faculty members (if possible), donors, alumni. Everyone regularly permitted to be on grounds to protest the event “in person” so to speak as long as THAT doesn’t break the rules... I’m sure there are quite a few Pro-Life alumni from over the years...
It’s not like they came to protest at your house. They were simply walking onto the grounds of a major university, one which has no problem identifying itself as Catholic, making tremendous merchandise out of that famous identification. It is run by priests who are completely under the authority of their Church, supposedly. That Church decries the evil of abortion, and Barack Obama is the most prominent and powerful propagator of abortion on the planet. Inviting him would be as if the NAACP decided to invite and honor the head of the KKK. Think maybe someone would get upset at that?
People are technically wrong in calling this civil disobedience. The protesters are not challenging an unjust law, per se, even though it is taking place in the larger context of the abortion holocaust. They are in the first case here protesting the actions of their own Church in allowing honors to be bestowed on someone who is not in the least honorable. And those who operate under the authority of their own Church had them arrested.