PUNTA GORDA, Fla.—It has been said that you can’t legislate morality, but one small Southwest Florida city is trying and, in the process, may have violated the First Amendment rights of residents and visitors alike. Andrew Sheets, a resident of Punta Gorda, has racked up fines for displaying obscene speech on his person. The matter has caught the attention of The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization based in Virginia. The institute is defending Sheets’s right to political expression under the First Amendment. In a recent Punta Gorda City Court appearance, where Sheets was fighting his fines, Rutherford Institute attorneys argued that the ordinance’s ban on indecent speech is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment’s prohibition on content- and viewpoint-based regulation of speech by the government. The board refused to consider the constitutional arguments, found Sheets guilty, and upped his fine to $3,000. Going into court Sheets did not …