Pushing free speech envelope

But some of Pearcy's neighbors in a leafy Sacramento neighborhood have endured two years of his self-described free-speech barbs -- and they say the solider in effigy, with a sign dangling from its neck declaring "Bush Lied, I died," was the final straw in a long list of inappropriate displays.

One of them contacted the local news media about a week ago after the display had dangled from the home for about three weeks. Television camera crews and newspaper and radio reporters descended on the quiet Land Park neighborhood.

Pearcy and his wife, Virginia Pearcy, an attorney in San Francisco, lived in the home on Marty Way until about six months ago, when they moved to Berkeley and began renting the Sacramento residence.

Last week, as at least one TV camera rolled, someone climbed onto the house and ripped down the uniformed soldier. It was back up the next day, about the same time a radio talk show broadcast the Pearcys' address on the air.

More than 300 protesters showed up there on Tuesday night to show their displeasure -- and support -- for Stephen Pearcy's political artwork.

The mother of a dead U.S. soldier told Pearcy that the sight of the soldier in effigy only reminded her of her dead son, he said. Another mother of a fallen solider, Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, praised Pearcy's courage, he added.

The protest art has divided the neighborhood into people who support his claim of free speech and others who consider him to be a provocateur who comes to town every once in a while to post an inflammatory political message and disappear just as quickly.

Stephen Pearcy claims the political messages were put up to spark debate in the neighborhood. But how can you have a debate with someone who hasn't been there for months? The Sacramento neighbors are also frustrated that the Pearcys don't treat their Berkeley neighbors to the same running political commentary.

Such efforts in Berkeley are unnecessary, Stephen Pearcy said, because it's a place where people's political views fall right in line with his and his wife's views. Placing signs in the yard of their Berkeley home, he said, is like preaching to the choir.

That's certainly not the case in Sacramento, where it seems Pearcy has taken it upon himself to carry out a political re-education of his Sacramento neighbors, and particularly a few Republican families in close proximity.

In the past two years, the Pearcys have hung an Iraqi flag from their Sacramento home and chosen the day after a terrorist attack in Israel to unfurl the Palestinian flag in the front window, at least two neighbors have said.

Stephen Pearcy used the occasion of last year's Fourth of July holiday to place a U.S. flag in a trash can, sticking out enough to be seen, and erect a plywood sign above it that depicted the U.S. being flushed down a toilet. Virtually everyone in the neighborhood saw the display.

On the day American contractor Paul Johnson was beheaded in Saudi Arabia last year, Pearcy wrapped a round object in an American flag and hung it from a noose, neighbors say.

And there is more.

Before the November presidential election, and after he learned that his tenants had stuck a Bush-Cheney sign in the window, Stephen Pearcy showed up with another round of signs, proclaiming, "Only an idiot votes for The Idiot. ''

"He e-mailed us a couple of days after the sign went up and told us he was considering painting the house with an 'elect John Kerry' slogan or erecting a large sign as a fixture,'' said Nora Basher, a former tenant in the Marty Way home. The current tenant could not be reached for comment.

And when President Bush won re-election, Pearcy's sign was changed to "Only idiots voted for The Idiot.'' He's posted signs on his car and the kitchen window using profane language to vilify SUVs, police officers, the government and who knows what else, said one neighbor who asked not to be identified.

But for all the displays, it was the hanging soldier that drove neighbor Marque Cohen into a state of high agitation.

A self-described apolitical Jewish man, Cohen laughed at most of the displays -- even the Palestinian flag after acts of violence in Israel. But he found the effigy distasteful, disturbing and most of all disrespectful of neighbors, the soldiers who have died in Iraq and the families they left behind.

Cohen went online, ordered a Vietnam-era U.S. Marine Divisional flag with a skull-and-crossbones image that bears the words "Mess with the Best, Die with the Rest,'' and hung it on his front door.

"I did do that as a reaction to the effigy of the U.S. soldier, forget about my opinions about the war,'' Cohen said. "We're way past that now.''

Free speech is a right that's exercised with vigor in most Bay Area communities, not the least of which is Berkeley, where political zealotry is a cottage industry.

That is where the Pearcys should feel right at home.

Chip Johnson's column appears Mondays and Fridays. E-mail him at chjohnson [at] sfchronicle.com.