New York's Central Park has long been the logical place for mass gatherings, with its sprawling Great Lawn and, well, central location. In 1991, singer Paul Simon drew 750,000 there. In 1995, Pope John Paul II celebrated a mass that drew more than 130,000. And in 1997, country singer Garth Brooks played to a crowd of 250,000.

But political assemblies on the eve of the Republican National Convention appear to be taboo. This week, city officials persuaded a federal judge to keep the park off limits Saturday to a protest rally by 75,000 people jointly sponsored by an Arab-American coalition and an anti-war group.

In a nationwide poll conducted earlier this year for the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center and American Journalism Review, only 10% of respondents could name the right of assembly and free association as one of those guaranteed by the First Amendment.