A T-shirt made a statement at a Portsmouth Town Council public hearing on March 16, but the larger issue was one the town has been grappling with for years: how to regulate signs without violating the Constitution.

The shirt, worn by local property owner Michael DiPaola, featured a cartoon chicken and a message that would not survive most copy desks. It was provocative, and entirely in keeping with the tone of the display on his East Main Road property, which has become Portsmouth’s unofficial outdoor gallery of grievances.

DiPaola’s role in this issue, however, goes far beyond presentation. His successful lawsuit against the town, brought with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union, led directly to the current predicament.

A federal court found Portsmouth’s prior sign ordinance unconstitutional because it was not content-neutral — meaning officials had to read a sign’s message to determine whether it violated the rules. Since 2021, the town has been effectively unable to enforce its own law.

The ordinance now under consideration is an attempt to fix that. It avoids judging what signs say and instead focuses on how big they are, where they go and how long they stay. In legal terms, it aims to be content-neutral. In practical terms, it is an effort to restore order without infringing on protected speech.

For many residents, the issue feels far less abstract. It has an address. It is something they pass every day, something they have to explain to their children, something they believe has gone on far too long.

And yet, the legal boundaries are clear. Offensive speech remains protected speech. Municipalities may regulate the manner of expression, but not its message.

DiPaola himself emphasized that point in his remarks, speaking about constitutional protections, consistency in enforcement and property rights. Whatever one’s view of his methods, the principles he invoked are well established — even if they are not always comfortably received.

That discomfort is at the heart of the matter, and make no mistake: we hate the signs, too. But the same constitutional protections that safeguard reasonable expression also protect speech that many find objectionable. The First Amendment does not distinguish between the two.

Neighbors are fed up. Officials are cautious. The law is complicated.

And somewhere in all that, the First Amendment is doing exactly what it was designed to do — making everyone a little uncomfortable.