SF Columnist Contrasts Rev. Walter Hoye With "Occupy Oakland"

Debra Saunders writes in today's San Francisco Chronicle:

Inside Oakland bubble, all free speech isn't equal

For all their whining about the "police state" and the city's failure to respect their "First Amendment rights," Occupy Oakland activists have managed to flout the law with regular impunity. Somehow demonstrators have managed to turn Frank Ogawa Plaza into a tent stew and shut down parts of the city in a so-called general strike Nov. 2, and still they think they're victims who have been deprived of their free speech rights.

But if they want to see what it's really like to fight City Hall, they should talk to Walter Hoye. Hoye's offense was to walk up to people with a sign that said, "Jesus loves you and your baby. Let us help." For that he was arrested twice in 2008 and sentenced to 30 days in jail.

Read the whole thing, but we have to quote the Reverend's final sentences, because it captures the man's kindness and humility in a nutshell:

"I asked Hoye how he feels when Occupy Oakland protesters complain that they are victims whose free expression has been suppressed.

'I don't think they really know what being treated unfairly is,' he answered. 'I didn't see any of the kind of leniency that they received.'

And: 'Thank you for thinking of me. People have asked me about that.'"

The picture shows Reverend Hoye with Zack Goodman, a 12 year-old pro-life activist from Colorado, and Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs.