Victory in Florida!!. FREE SPEECH GUARANTEE

Date: 21 Apr 2009

Comment:

Victory in Florida!! 

The Florida House of Representatives passes 
a “Free Speech Protection” bill 

by Guy Rodgers, Executive Director

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On Saturday, while our staff was conducting training sessions at the “Citizens in Action” conference in Northern Virginia, I received an email from Adam Hasner, the Florida House Majority Leader, informing us that Florida’s version of “Rachel’s Law” had just passed. In a conference call a week earlier Rep. Hasner pointed out that ACT! for America chapter leaders and members in Florida played an active part in reaching out to legislators in the Florida House on this legislation. 

As Rep. Hasner noted so eloquently: “This bill protects Floridians from having their right to free speech suppressed by those with radical ideologies. Foreign courts that do not place the same value on our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech will no longer be used to intimidate Florida citizens.” 

You may recall that “Rachel’s Law” was originally passed in New York about a year ago. It protects authors and publishers from intimidation lawsuits filed in foreign countries, and was dubbed “Rachel’s Law” because of a lawsuit filed against Rachel Ehrenfeld who wrote the book Funding Evil. A version of the legislation, entitled “The Free Speech Protection Act,” has been introduced in the U.S. Congress. We will be sending you an action alert on this legislation in the near future, so stay tuned! 

I hope you are seeing the pattern we are seeing. Eighteen months ago there was very little good news we could report to you. That is no longer the case. We and our allies are going on the offensive and we’re winning victories. I fully expect that, over the next twelve months, we’ll see more victories like these. More and more people are waking up – and more and more elected officials are waking up. Yes, we have a long ways to go and a long fight ahead, but there is a message being sent loud and clear to radical Islamists, and that message is that America is a sleeping giant that is beginning to stir from its slumber, and that Americans are not going to roll over and allow Islamism to steamroller us as it has done in Europe. 

In this vein, we have a simple action we would like you to take to help us improve our ability to educate and persuade elected officials throughout the country. Lisa Piraneo, our new Director of Government Relations, wants to build a database of every one of our members who has a relationship with at least one elected official, at any level. 

Compiling this database will enable us to more effectively and strategically advance our legislative priorities and stop legislation that is harmful – whether at the city, county, state or federal level. 

So please read over the following ACTION ALERT and help us once again help you! 

Guy Rodgers 

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