Reply #6: Republican congressman’s wife also removed for ‘Support the Troops’ shirt

[Barrett808]

Capitol Police arrest antiwar activist Sheehan
Republican congressman’s wife also removed for ‘Support the Troops’ shirt
NBC News and news services
Updated: 11:20 a.m. ET Feb. 1, 2006

WASHINGTON - Cindy Sheehan, mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq, wasn’t the only one ejected from the House gallery during the State of the Union address for wearing a T-shirt with a war-related slogan that violated the rules. The wife of a powerful Republican congressman was also asked to leave.

Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida — chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee — was removed from the gallery because she was wearing a T-shirt that read, “Support the Troops — Defending Our Freedom.”

“Because she had on a shirt that someone didn’t like that said support our troops, she was kicked out of this gallery,” Young said on the House floor Wednesday morning, holding up the gray shirt.

“Shame, shame,” he scolded.

Mrs. Young was sitting about six rows from first lady Laura Bush and asked to leave. She argued with police in the hallway outside the House chamber.

“They said I was protesting,” she told the St. Petersburg Times. “I said, ‘Read my shirt, it is not a protest.’ They said, ‘We consider that a protest.’ I said, ‘Then you are an idiot.”’

They told her she was being treated the same as Sheehan, a protester ejected before the speech Tuesday night for wearing a T-shirt with an antiwar slogan. Sheehan wrote in her blog Wednesday that she intends to file a First Amendment lawsuit.

(more)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11120353/