Beg Your Pardon?

The surviving members of The Doors and the family of the late Jim Morrison have issued a statement in response to Florida’s posthumous pardon of the performer for alleged indecent acts during a Miami concert in 1969. In a nutshell, they’re not impressed.

Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore said the indecency charges filed against the late frontman were “trumped-up,” “grandstanding by ambitious politicians” and “an affront to free speech.”

“We don’t feel Jim needs to be pardoned for anything. His performance that night was certainly provocative, and entirely in the insurrectionary spirit of The Doors’ music and message,” the statement said.

“If the State of Florida and the City of Miami want to make amends for the travesty of Jim Morrison’s arrest and prosecution forty years after the fact, an apology would be more appropriate – and expunging the whole sorry matter from the record.

“And how about a promise to stop letting culture-war hysteria trump our First Amendment rights?  Freedom of Speech must be held sacred, especially in these reactionary times,” the statement concluded.