The move actually de-criminalizes public swearing in order to remove it from the penumbra of First Amendment applications, as reported here:
Middleborough, a town of about 20,000 residents perhaps best known for its rich cranberry bogs, has had a bylaw against public profanity since 1968. But because that bylaw essentially makes cursing a crime, it has rarely if ever been enforced, officials said, because it simply would not merit the time and expense to pursue a case through the courts.
The ordinance would decriminalize public profanity, allowing police to write tickets as they would for a traffic violation. It would also decriminalize certain types of disorderly conduct, public drinking and marijuana use, and dumping snow on a roadway.
Just another expression of the reactionary impulse and not really a bona fide idea, an irritable mental gesture which only resembles an idea, right?
