Political signs create front-yard wasteland
Yard signs have always triggered me. I don’t like their “I’m smarter or more aware or more caring than you” ethos that seeks to change my behavior in some way. That could be anything from a political sign to a Beware of Dog sign to a high school athlete or graduate sign to a friendly “All are Welcome Here” sign.
These public declarations seem dogmatic and even pretentious. Why would someone presume that someone else might change their voting preferences based on their sign? What is someone to do about the scary dog? Yay for their high school superstar, but do we really need that much positive affirmation for our kids all the time? And while the “All are Welcome Here” signs are on the surface apolitical, in reality they are a response to a perceived bias by some groups against other groups, and therefore, I ask, would those they deem to be biased be welcome there?
I confess to purposely treading on a homeowner’s front lawn when I was out for a run in a non-descript neighborhood with a “Keep Off the Grass” sign in front of a particularly unimpressive home and lawn. Really? I wouldn’t have dreamed of jogging through their grass until that aggressively unfriendly sign beckoned me there.
The source of my discontent is apparent right now as we are less than two weeks out from yet another ugly and contentious election, the likes of which never occurred until a certain failed billionaire entered the scene in 2016. Political signs jumping out at me from the side of the road in front of otherwise bucolic Central Pennsylvania countryside properties a few weeks ago muddled my mood on what had been a pleasant bike ride. The constant TV ads – when I thought I had ad-free streaming – is bad enough, but the visual assault in towns, businesses, billboards, and yards is just overkill.
No one’s political sign is going to sway my vote, regardless of which side someone lies on. What it does do is make me clench on the inside to see people who display views opposite my own. These could be quite nice people who if they hadn’t broadcast their political leanings might have been people I wouldn’t mind being around.
For the past three years, I have walked many times a week on my way to my gym past a few properties that never took their political signs down. Why? What good is a Trump/Pence sign in 2024? Similarly, the offensive “Creepy Joe Biden” and “Let’s Go Brandon” signs are irrelevant. All they accomplish is showcasing the homeowners’ bitter sides. I tense up walking by the properties.
A private home on a very public road – Walnut Street in Harrisburg just beyond the entrance to Reservoir Park – has displayed a small billboard sign with regularly changing messages that are as blatantly controversial as they can be. In 2016, they were of the “Lock Her Up” nature, and always they are derogatory to Democrats and any liberal beliefs, such as anti-abortion messages featuring pictures of fetuses. They are both visually disturbing and disturbingly close to the busy road.
This home first prompted my outsized disdain for signs as I wondered how such a large sign could be permitted in a mostly residential neighborhood. I tried to contact public officials about the sign policy, but no one ever responded to me. I wrote a letter and sent it the old-fashioned way by snail mail to the property owner asking whether I could interview them about their motivations and inspirations for the signs. No response.
While it seems that communities can limit the sizes of signs, they cannot stop homeowners from putting up any kind of sign their hearts desire thanks to a 2015 Supreme Court ruling that any law that restricts yard signs based on content is unconstitutional. This ruling based on the First Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing free speech allows for even vulgar speech, but in a world in which political candidates now frequently resort to vulgar speech, who even flinches anymore?
Obscene signs, however, are not allowed, and the Supreme Court defines obscenity as something that passes the Miller test – the average contemporary adult would find it to be erotic, lascivious, abnormal, unhealthy, degrading, shameful, or showing morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion; the average contemporary adult would find it depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and a reasonable person would find it to be lacking in serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Who decides who is average in these crazy times?
Unless someone lives in a community with a homeowner’s association that might have rules limiting signs, it’s next to impossible to fight a neighbor’s sign. Most sources recommend talking rationally to the neighbor with the offensive sign as no legal recourse is really possible.
Camp Hill borough tried to limit signs because of traffic safety and aesthetics, which a three-judge panel from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May of this year found to be legitimate reasons, but not enough to limit free speech. The court ruled that the borough could not limit only certain types of signs as it sought to do because it discriminates against some messages.
Camp Hill’s ordinance said residents were not permitted to have more than two “personal expression” signs and signs could not be displayed for more than 60 days before an event, such as an election. Signs also could not be taller than 6 feet, be lit, or remain up more than 30 days after an event.
Yes, we must protect free speech, but how do we protect someone from being connected to overzealous neighbors, particularly if they are trying to sell their home. Couldn’t one argue that a neighbor’s yard signs are hurting their home’s values? Real estate agents urge clients to depersonalize their homes – replace color with whites/grays/beiges, for example -- before showing them. Similarly, someone wouldn’t want to have controversial signs on display in or outside their home.
My daughter lived on the bottom floor of a three-story rental house in Vermont when she was in her early 20s. A new tenant moved into the third-floor unit and hung a Confederate flag in the window. I worried about her going in and out of a house with a Confederate flag displayed, so I contacted the landlord and asked them to have the tenant take it down. The landlord could do that – and did – because it was their property, but only homeowners can make those decisions – not municipalities.
This spring, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was called out for flying an upside-down American flag at his home before the inauguration of Joe Biden in January of 2021. Alito said his wife put the flag up in response to anti-Trump signs by a neighbor; other former neighbors say the flag was up before the confrontation with neighbors. Many called for Alito to recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 election and Jan. 6 insurrection. He did not, and in fact, flew an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at his New Jersey beach house a year ago. Is it OK for a justice who interprets the law of our country to flaunt his political views? That seems like a scary road.
This poses a perfect example of not just neighboring problems caused by political signs, but also the us against them mentality that seems to have exploded across the country pitting Democrats against Republicans, city-dwellers vs. rural people, white collar vs. blue collar, and family members against one another.
Years ago, my family and I spent a night in a tiny Wyoming border town where I saw political signs for a candidate named Reese on signs mimicking a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup packaging. I’m pretty sure Hershey Company might have successfully thwarted that sign campaign if it had been aware, but given the low stakes of this middle-of-nowhere race, it might not have been worth the money it would cost to get the candidate to cease using the proprietary likeness to the Hershey trademark.
Trademark infringement is one thing, but angry political vitriol is another, and that’s what the current campaign seems to mostly promote. Infringement can be controlled; vitriol sadly cannot.
Our personal anti-sign stance started more than 20 years ago when a soccer mom asked me to put a sign promoting her school board candidacy in my yard. I felt bad to say no, so I put out her sign. My husband didn’t like that we had done it. I felt a bit uncomfortable, too. Afterall, I didn’t really know her well enough to know her beliefs and background. Afterwards, we agreed that we would forever more be no-sign people. Given our differing political views, this has not only saved our lawn from becoming a political wasteland, but also might have saved our marriage, allowed us to remain anonymous, and helped my anti-sign tendencies to become even more engrained.
Thankfully, my now adult kids were out of high school by 2011 before the yard sign craze celebrating graduates, sports team participants, and honor students really got off the ground. The whole town never had to know that my son was on the wrestling team or that my daughter played field hockey for one year. I don’t think any of us missed the pats on the back that might have brought.
The catchy 1971 hit by Five Man Electrical Band “Signs” often runs on the loop in my head as I lament the yard signs that make me tense. The two-hit wonder band inspires me to do as it suggests in the first verse to “tuck my long hair up under my hat” and enter where the sign outside said “Long-haired freaky people need not apply.” If everyone would just tuck their views under their hats, it might be a lot easier for us all to get along, long-haired freaky people and all.
The chorus sums it up best for me:
Sign, sign
Everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery
Breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that
Can't you read the sign?
Please stop blocking my scenery. You’re breakin’ my mind, but you certainly aren’t changing it.
