Honestly, reading the article, it sounds to me like the blame lies neither with Santorum (who wasn't there yet when the girls were ejected) nor with B&N;, who have changed their policy after realizing they made a mistake in deferring to the event security team, but with the security team, who panicked and acted really stupidly, and should be looking for work right now.

I do want to ask: what would you do if it was your signing -- if a group of people showed up at an event of yours, before you'd even arrived, with the intention of engaging you in political debate because they disagreed with the underlying messages in the Wilderness series, say? Not to have a one-on-one chat with you when it was their turn; these people showed up in a group, apparently with an agenda in mind. It would ruin the event for your actual fans, who just wanted to hear you read and speak and get their books signed, wouldn't it? Granted, I doubt you'd have them ejected by your own hired security guard ;), but would you allow them to take over the event with their discussion, if that's what they wanted to do? I know that Santorum is a political figure and wrote a political book and hence should certainly expect this sort of thing to happen when he appears in public to discuss it; I'm not drawing a parallel between your hypothetical situation and his. What would you do? What do you think Ms. Russell would do?

Rachel -- fair enough. Let me tell you what I would want to do in a similar situation.
If, for example, I arrived at a bookstore to read and there was a group of ten or twenty Native Americans, who had decided to come specifically because they were unhappy with the way I portrayed their ancestors. These people know each other and stand together before the reading. They are talking and laughing.

Somebody comes up to me and says, those people are here to complain to you about your books.

What I hope I would do is this: carry on with the reading. During the question and answer period, when one or more of the group stood to ask a question or voice a difference of opinion, I hope I would listen. If the discussion seemed like it would be a long one and there were others in the audience who weren't as interested in the discussion, here's what I hope I would have the courage to do:

I could say, I'd like to continue this discussion, and listen to what you have to say. Is there someplace nearby where we could meet after I've finished here? Anyone who is interested can join us. I can't promise that I will agree with every point you make, but I can promise that I will take your concerns seriously.

Even if some of the protestors were angry or rude, I hope I could do that much.

I can't imagine doing any of the following:

going to the bookstore security and asking them to throw the protestors out of the store;
calling the police and asking them to arrest the protestors;
ignoring them;
dismissing them without listening to what they had to say. Because, I don't know everything, and I might learn something. I probably would learn something.

I'm only an author, of course. I'm not an elected representative -- who has, by virtue of being elected, a responsibility to his constituents. In my opinion.

The bottom line is, I hope I would not be so afraid of people who want to talk to me about a difference of opinion that I would deny them the basic right to assemble.

Sara, I agree, I think your response sounds like exactly what should happen -- assuming the people wait until the question and answer time (or a similarly appropriate moment) to make their points. Unfortunately the girls who wanted to talk to the senator were not given the opportunity to show whether or not they intended to be so polite. The assumption on the part of the "advance team" was that they would disrupt the event. And even if they had planned to disrupt it, their presence was not dealt with in a correct way, in my opinion.

Rachel -- yes, exactly. Not only were they denied the opportunity to demonstrate their good manners, they were manhandled and threatened.

The bookstore should have lodged a protest at that point. I hope I never stand by and watch anybody being treated like this without saying something, or doing something.

In this case, I find it all the more outrageous that these young women were threatened, physically and in a variety of other ways, by someone who claimed to represent the law.

When I first read this, the most disturbing thing for me was that the state trooper was in uniform but not actually on duty. Isn't this an offence in the USA?
The whole incident leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth.

I agree with Alison, bad taste. These were girls, teenaged girls. They were most likely being a little "loud" about their intentions...but like most were just being loud and would have waited until the appropriate time to voice their oppinions.

The Republican Senator from Pennsylvania makes reasonable conservatives like myself appear to be racist, sexist homophobes.

I have deleted a long comment to this post because, while I am happy to debate any of the points made here, I will not tolerate flaming. If you call me or anybody else names, I will simply delete the comment and bann you from further participation.