"MOUNT WASHINGTON, Ky. - In the 1970s, when Bullitt County was still a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity, Chester Porter's attempts to prosecute Klansmen were met with threats and a cross-burning outside his home.

'It was a time to be cautious and be aware of your surroundings,' said the former county attorney.

A generation later, Porter said he knows of no Klan activity in the county. And Porter, who is white, has mixed feelings about the legal tactic that officials are now using to keep it that way: local ordinances that forbid demonstrators from wearing masks or hoods.

Porter said government should not set up obstacles for groups wanting to peacefully express their views, no matter how extreme.

Besides, he said, 'as a kid growing up, I learned early on that it's not good to be spanking copperheads. It's better to be staying away from them. If they are silent, you be silent. That's my philosophy.'

He is not the only one troubled. The ACLU says the laws, while well-intended, may infringe on the Klan's free-speech rights.

'The City Council in Shepherdsville, a focal point of Klan activity in the 1970s, recently approved such an ordinance. The Mount Washington City Council was expected to adopt a similar one Monday night.

In all, nearly 30 Kentucky cities or counties have such ordinances, some dating to the 1920s, according to the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights.

'You can't stop them from marching, but you might be able to stop them if they have to uncover their faces,' said Barry Armstrong, a banker and white Mount Washington councilman who suggested his town's proposed ordinance, which would carry a $100 fine, or up to 50 days in jail, or both.

No one has been prosecuted under any of the recent ordinances.

Armstrong said his proposal has been warmly received in a town not exactly known for racial diversity. Out of a population of 8,485, only 41 residents identified themselves in the latest census as black or partly black.

From his auto repair shop about a block from City Hall, Jimmy Breeden, who is white, said he likes the ordinance. People have a right to protest, he said, but hiding behind a hood or mask is 'a show of cowardice.'

But Jeff Vessels, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, said: 'What is at stake here is a very important First Amendment principle of free speech, and it protects that speech regardless of how offensive people might find that speech.'

Vessels said the ACLU is keeping track of the recent anti-mask ordinances but has not been contacted by anyone wanting to challenge them.

Such laws have been vulnerable. Louisville's ordinance was struck down by a federal judge in response to an ACLU lawsuit filed before a Klan rally in 1996. An anti-mask ordinance, enacted in Goshen, Indiana met a similar fate in federal court after being challenged by the KKK.

Jeffery Berry of Butler, Ind., national imperial wizard for the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, said anti-mask laws are an infringement on Klansmen's constitutional right to assemble. He said the hoods are not meant to intimidate.

'That's part of our religious attire,' he said. 'It's for two reasons: One is a religious aspect, and the other is to conceal one's identity for safety.' Berry said Klansman fear repercussions at work and in their communities if they march without hoods.

In April, in neighboring Hardin County, the Elizabethtown City Council hurriedly passed an antimask ordinance days before the Klan rallied on the courthouse steps.

'We didn't need that kind of element circulating in the community without the knowledge of who they are,' said Mayor David Willmoth Jr."

(The Associated Press, The Daily Progress, July 24, 2001)