Group Banned From Oldest 4th of July Parade for Distributing the Constitution of the United States

It is a sad sign of the times when you can be discriminated against for being a patriot. Apparently the Bristol Parade Committee decided that they needed to permanently ban the Rhode Island Tea Party from the USA's oldest 4th of July parade in Bristol R.I. for distributing pocket sized copies of the United States Constitution. This dispute the fact that many of the other floats were allowed to distribute fliers to the crowd. The Bristol Parade Committee states that distributing of any materials is against the parade rules for safety reasons. Yet this flies in the face of reason since the rules were not applied to anyone but the Rhode Island Tea Party. To top it off the Pocket Constitutions were being handed out by Tea Party sympathizers not by the group that was part of the parade.



Update! The chairman of the Bristol Parade Committee, David Burns, has issued a formal apology to the Rhode Island Tea Party stating that the committee “would like to clear up any misunderstanding" and that "they are not banned from future parades.” Hooray!