Las Vegas street preachers and casino owners make uneasy peace in 'Sin Cit

[emad]

The Independent
By John Hiscock in Los Angeles
11 November 2004


A feud between pavement preachers and Las Vegas casinos, has reached an uneasy truce, thanks to the most unlikely of peace-brokers.

Casino owners, who rely on a carefree "Sin City" image to attract tourists and gamblers, have long objected to the small band of placard-bearing preachers who march the pavements denouncing prostitutes, homosexuals, the devil and gambling. Security guards used to try to move them on.

The preachers have insisted the pavements along the famous Las Vegas "Strip" are public forums where they have the right to spread the gospel as they wish. Occasionally the disputes have turned into scuffles, much to the delight of crowds of onlookers.

Now, the American Civil Liberties Union, ironically despised by the preachers and the casinos, has negotiated a deal. Both sides have accepted a tenuous agreement which bans commercial activity, such as the handing out of invitations to strip clubs and massage parlours, but allows preachers and demonstrators to stay as long as their placards are no wider than the width of their bodies.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=581577

[Unstuck In Time]

1. Sounds like the truce Democrats have had with the Repugs

One side shuts up, the other side goes on doing what it's been doing all along.