Proposal To Protect Scientology From Picketing Tabled

The Riverside, California Board of Supervisors yesterday decided that the proposed cure was worse than the disease as they voted to defer further consideration of an anti-picketing ordinance that had been introduced in response to repeated protests against the Church of Scientology by the international group "Anonymous" that opposes Scientology. The San Diego Union Tribune reports that the tabled proposal would have restricted "targeted picketing" in unincorporated communities to at least 300 feet away from the subject's residence. Council members were concerned that they were being drawn into a religious dispute, and that, in any event, merely moving a protest away from Scientology's San Jacinto compound to a different location does not solve the problem.