In February of this year, we shared some information about Teen Mania and their practices. The resource was
http://www.recoveringalumni.com/ . The blog is sponsored by an alumnus of the Honors Academy program. Earlier this month, a post on that blog contained an account of a protest in Dallas at an Acquire the Fire conference. This is a recruiting “outreach” for participants in the other programs of Teen Mania including Honor Academy.
Here is the post from April 4, 2011: (used with permission)
Protesting the Dallas Acquire the Fire Posted by Recovering Alumni | Labels: protest
Note: If this is your first time here, click the ‘Allegations’ tab at the top or the ‘true stories’ category on the right to read about the abuse. (see the original blog for links)
On Saturday, some local alumni and I held a protest at the Dallas Acquire the Fire. We wanted to raise awareness about the dangers of the Honor Academy so we made signs and printed out flyers that had the blog address on them. Before the protest, I went online to make sure I understood my constitutional rights to peaceful assembly and free speech.
According to the law, I have the right to protest and hand out leaflets on public property, such as a public street or sidewalk. Luckily, the Dallas Acquire the Fire event was held at the Gexa Energy Pavilion in Fair Park.
Fair Park is a 277-acre National Historic Landmark, owned by the City of Dallas and operated under the management of Fair Park Administration a division of the Park and Recreation Department.
Given the fact that Fair Park is publicly owned property, I did not anticipate any trouble from the police. That was naive.
When we first arrived around lunchtime, we stood just outside the entrance/exit of the arena, on what we believed was a public sidewalk. Within one minute, a uniformed police officer came and told us we had to move and that we were actually on private property. If you watch the video, you’ll notice that the officer refused to answer our questions about who owned this supposed “private property” and even more infuriatingly violated the free speech rights of the teens who wanted to speak with us. He ended by telling us that we had to keep moving, we were not allowed to stand still. I asked him if that was the law and he said it was. (I later discovered this was bull.)
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