The law protects a woman’s right to breastfeed, not that it helped Savvy Shukla at the time.

Tonight while in Piggly Wiggly with my sister and both my children (the oldest 20mos and the youngest 1month old today) while nursing a Deputy approached me right when I was about to leave and informed that I needed to cover up because someone might find it “offensive”

I repeated the law back to him stating that Georgia state law says I can breastfeed however most comfortable wherever I want as long as I’m authorized to be there.

He then grows flustered and says “No ma’am that’s not the case.” And I said

“No I know what the law says” for him to say:

“You just THINK you know what the law says and if your nipple becomes exposed I really don’t want to have to arrest you or you be arrested for being offensive. This isn’t like the first amendment where you can say something offensive.”

Of course, the cop was wrong, but what difference does that make at the Piggly Wiggly? At first, Police Chief John Darr apologized, conceding that his officer was a clueless buffoon.  But he soon realized that he violated the police rulebook by admitting fault, and switched course.

However, in typical blue wall of silence fashion, Darr reversed course, telling the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer that after speaking with the deputy, he was informed that the deputy had simply told Shukla that she might want to “cover up” after being approached by customers.

A little shallow editorializing sums up the reaction to all this.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the deputy got caught violating Georgia state law, and his superiors, rather than hold him accountable for his actions, chose to circle the wagons and begin victim blaming.

Feeding a hungry child is no crime, and victimizing a mother feeding her baby is utterly reprehensible. No woman should be accosted by law enforcement for simply feeding her hungry child.

Fair enough. After all, Shukla’s choice to breastfeed was protected under the law. The deputy might well have been offended by it, but so what? If it’s protected, he doesn’t get to order Shukla to stop doing something the law entitled her to do.

But if that’s so, and indeed it is, what makes others think that things that offend them, things that they are entitled to do, should be prohibited?  Of course, breastfeeding is one of those activities that we adore, so there is little controversy in supporting Shukla and condemning the ridiculousness of the offended deputy. He’s wrong, so therefore he’s wrong.

The conduct of Tristan Rettke will enjoy no similar sympathy.

An East Tennessee State University student was arrested Wednesday after going to a Black Lives Matter protest on campus wearing a gorilla mask and handing out bananas.

Tristan Rettke, an 18-year-old freshman, wore overalls and a gorilla mask and, holding a burlap sack with a Confederate flag and a marijuana leaf on it, offered bananas to students who were protesting, according to the ETSU police department report. He was arrested and charged with civil rights intimidation.

Instead of revealing a breast, he covered his face with a gorilla mask. He didn’t physically harm anyone. He handed out bananas. And for that, he was arrested.

It’s different, you say? After all, what Rettke did was hate speech, racially discriminatory, disgusting and horrible?  Well, sure. And the First Amendment allows Rettke to be offensive.

Unless Rettke did something much more physically intimidating than this news report suggests, his offensive antics were protected by the First Amendment. While his antics were no doubt provocative, courts have ruled that the First Amendment protects racially provocative behavior, such as a racist, sexist “ugly woman” skit by a college fraternity, which a federal appeals court ruled could not be punished in Iota Xi Chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity v. George Mason University, 993 F.2d 386 (4th Cir. 1993). Similarly, in Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949), the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a racist, anti-semitic priest, who was convicted after causing unrest by giving a speech in which he criticized various racial groups and made a number of inflammatory comments. The Supreme Court held that a “breach of the peace” ordinance ” that banned speech which “stirs the public to anger, invites dispute, brings about a condition of  unrest,  or creates a disturbance” was unconstitutional because it prohibited much protected speech.

There’s a perfectly fine argument to be made that Rettke’s “speech” is unworthy of protection because it’s outrageously offensive and hurtful, just as there is a perfectly fine argument to be made that Shukla’s breastfeeding isn’t at all offensive, except to some Philistine cop who is breast-obsessed and doesn’t appreciate a mother’s agency to breastfeed whenever she deems it necessary. But both are/were offensive to someone, and both are/were protected by law.

These are value judgments. You, naturally, believe your value judgment is right because it’s yours, what you believe in, and therefore is both obvious and beyond dispute. At the same time, you have no issue proclaiming the deputy’s value judgment wrong, because it’s not yours.

If offense is the line distinguishing what should and should not be permitted, what is criminal and what is adorable, then we have a problem. No matter how enlightened you believe yourself to be, there will be someone who thinks otherwise. Someone will take offense at everything. Someone will be just as certain as you are that they are right.

On the bright side, Shukla’s breastfeeding was protected by law. So, too, is Rettke’s racist expression. His speech protects your speech. As offensive as it may be, defend it.