BEDFORD, Ind. — There were no signs in Samuel Shaw’s yard for the first time in decades.
Normally, his lawn at the corner of 7th and H streets is spattered with various wooden signs expressing his political opinions, his dissatisfaction with government officials or his Christian faith.
They were white, their messages painted in red, commanding letters — his way of reaching people with his opinions.
“I’ve been doing this for more than twenty years,” Shaw said. “I made more signs recently than I normally do, but that’s because I had more to speak out about.”
But in September, the city of Bedford passed a sign ordinance that Shaw, 76, said forced him to remove all of the signs from his lawn.
He said he’d known for years the city didn’t like the signs he displayed, but the passage of the ordinance surprised him.
“The new mayor, she didn’t want an eyesore I guess,” Shaw said.
He reached out to the American Civil Liberties Union in Indiana to see if he had a case against the city.
On Monday, the ACLU sued the city of Bedford, saying in a press release that Bedford’s ordinance violated the First and 14th Amendments of the Constitution. Attorney Jan Mensz said the city’s ordinance relies on the ability to read the contents of the signs, which is what the ACLU is arguing makes it unconstitutional.
“You can’t judge a sign by its contents,” Mensz said. “The way the ordinance is written, the number of signs you can have depends on what is written on them.”
According to the ordinance, property owners are limited to one temporary sign of general use and one window sign.
“How do you tell if a sign is temporary?” Mensz said. “You read it — you judge it by its contents.”
A statement released by the mayor’s office said the ordinance was written specifically to “not stipulate content.”
Shaw’s down-the-street neighbor Bill Raines said he doesn’t think the ordinance serves any purpose other than to discriminate against Shaw.
“They’ve always wanted to silence him,” Raines said. “My biggest question is how do they enforce this?”
Raines said he went to the city council meetings where the members discussed and passed the ordinance.
“They gave the public a chance to comment,” Raines said. “There were good numbers of people for and against it.”
Shaw insists his signs weren’t deliberately harmful even if they were inflammatory, which they often were.
“I’ve never been sued for defamation,” Shaw said.
When asked what content he posted that could be considered defamatory, he laughed.
“Oh god,” he said. “A bunch.”
One sign read, “Christian mayor Girgis, it was not God’s will to spend three mill to move depot while poor people are going hungry.” Another, “Fireman Dewayne Turpen threatens confrontation, calls me “chicken shit” fire chief — mayor approves.”
Shaw doesn’t see his signage as harmful. He sees it as expressions he believes are protected by the First Amendment.
“I believe that the Bill of Rights was written in order,” Shaw said. “Free speech is the First Amendment, not the 10th.”
He hopes the ACLU will be able to argue that successfully in court.
Bedford, he said, has changed significantly in the 45 years he’s lived there. He worries that the encroachment on his freedom — should the courts judge it as such — will spill over onto other people.
“If they can do it to me, they can do it to you,” Shaw said.
He added that he is not allowed to attend various government meetings and that he thinks his letters to the editor that he sends to various local newspapers, including the Herald Times, are either not published or not published enough.
“I’m opinionated,” Shaw said.
IU sophomore Garrett Thompson said Shaw’s signs were part of growing up in Bedford.
“I remember seeing those signs before I could even read,” Thompson said. “It just became normal.”
Thompson said he saw controversy around Shaw come to a head when his middle school prohibited Shaw from attending a Veteran’s Day ceremony.
He said Shaw protested outside of the school wearing a sandwich board sign that described himself using racial slurs even though he is a white man.
Thompson isn’t sure how Shaw was initially banned, but he said he heard plenty of arguments both for and against Shaw’s presence.
“There were people who thought him being there would be a bad example for the students,” Thompson said. “There were people who also said he was just voicing his opinion and it was wrong to tell him not to, even if his language could have been better.”
According to Mensz, language that is not incitement to violence, true threats, obscenities or hate speech is protected under the First Amendment, covering most, if not all, of Shaw’s signs no matter how offensive people find them.
Shaw’s signs and the messages he writes on them have come to identify him since he’s been writing them for so many years. In some ways, the signs are most of what he has left in Bedford.
“I don’t have any family in town,” Shaw said.
He said he struggled with alcoholism when his children were young and none of them keep in touch. He uses the present tense when he calls himself an alcoholic before he adds that he “hasn’t touched the stuff in years.”
His dog, a border collie named Tasha, is his most loyal companion and despite degeneration in her back legs, always sits up when he comes nearby.
“I’m doing this for everyone,” he said, looking at his empty lawn where his signs once were. “There’s nothing wrong with a fair and legal fight.”
He said he hopes the signs can go back up. He knows there’s a chance they won’t, but he’s prepared for that. He’s thought of ways to keep expressing his opinions, such as driving his red, white and blue truck around town displaying the signage that’s prohibited in his lawn.
Thompson said the suit against his hometown felt “out of the blue” and that it was hard for him to believe the ACLU was suing Bedford because of the way someone expressed opinions.
“It’s just something you’d never expect,” Thompson said.
