BRATTLEBORO — If the members of Centre Congregational Church vote to relinquish its apparent ownership of the town common, the town is going to attempt to kick out the Occupy Brattleboro encampment.
On the surface, it will be construed as an attack on First Amendment rights if the town does so. However, I think the larger issue, and one that will likely go largely unspoken among town officials, is the discrimination (both legal and otherwise) against the homeless.
When I was visiting the camp recently, a traveler in a SUV stopped to yell out the window. She said, “Go camp somewhere else!”
In other words, she didn't care one way or another about the protest. What she was offended by was the fact that there are homeless people there.
This kind of attitude is wrong. If we are going to make it illegal to be homeless, then shouldn't there be a law to house them?
Instead of its employees passing off this problem to someone else and conveniently washing their hands of the whole mess, the town should take this as a valuable opportunity to do something positive here.
Regardless of how the vote goes, the members of the church should stand with the protesters (if not with the Occupy movement), and then stand for the rights of the most disfranchised class of people in this country - the homeless.