News & Observer

RALEIGH   I have a friend who owns a small sign-making shop. A few months ago, I asked this fellow to make some political signs, which I placed in my yard near the road. I wondered what the response would be.

Within a week or so, a letter came in the mail from the neighborhood Homeowners Association management company telling me that such signs were not allowed and to remove them immediately. I did, but I was quite angry at losing my First Amendment freedom of speech and a “redress of grievances.”

I looked at our copy of the neighborhood covenants and could find nothing that regulates yard signs. The lady at the management company explained that a paragraph titled “Quiet Enjoyment” gives the HOA the right to tell me to remove my signs. As written, that paragraph addresses only “obnoxious or offensive activity.” Yard signs are not mentioned.

So I searched the Internet for applicable legal information, and I found a state law called the N.C. Planned Community Act. This act limits an HOA’s ability to run roughshod over property owners. The act provides a specific set of rules defining how an HOA can limit political yard signs and American flags (Section 47C-3-121). This ensures that a private citizen does not lose First Amendment rights that are otherwise protected at the local and state levels by various Supreme Court and appellate court rulings.

The words “political signs” are specifically required for use in neighborhood covenants if any sign regulation is defined. So, of course, I made the management company aware that I knew it was running afoul of the Planned Community Act. Eventually (after many e-mails) the HOA finally admitted there were no written rules for political yard signs.

My signs were again on display the very next day.

Did I forget to tell you about the signs? Sorry. They say things like “Repeal and Replace ObamaCare” and “No Exploding Debt” and “No Illegal Aliens” and “No CO2 Cap & Tax” and “Small Government, Low Taxes” and my favorite, “Nov. 2nd: End of American Socialism.”

These days I get two kinds of response to my signs. The most prevalent response comes from folks who could be fellow tea partyers. They usually stop their cars, roll down the window and say “God bless you” or “I agree entirely” and, of course, “we’ve got to do something!” Several have come to the house, rung the doorbell and talked for a while. My wife talked for 15 minutes with a lady who had immigrated to America years ago. She was angry at folks who jump the border. Her family spent years waiting their turn in line, working to learn our language and our form of government, and spending thousands of dollars in legal fees to immigrate properly.

The other kind of response I get is not so nice. We received an unsigned piece of hate mail saying that most of our neighbors were Barack Obama voters and we should accept their choice. We’ve also received one obscene phone call. I filled out a police report with the Raleigh police and spoke with AT&T about the proper procedure for capturing future calls. A few times a week, I can hear some horn-blowing that is of the angry type, not the friendly type.

I can only guess that those folks must have flunked ninth-grade civics. Or perhaps they just have un-American values like their silver-tongued messiah. I’m pretty sure the First Amendment also guarantees their right to put pro-Obama signs in their yards if they wish. Go ahead!

Don’t let your HOA or anyone else steal your First Amendment rights. And, please, be sure you are registered to vote Nov. 2. This will be the most important election we’ve seen in more than a century. Our way of life and system of government are at stake. We can choose to be freedom-loving capitalists, who believe in personal responsibility, small government and low taxes, or we can become big-government, welfare state, nanny state, highly taxed socialists who live however the bureaucrats tell us. As Obama said, “That’s what elections are for.”

Andy Withers is an engineer who works in Raleigh.