For more than a year, activists in Framingham have targeted social service agencies with ugly tones and dubious legal theories. Town officials have responded by putting up barriers to the expansion of programs to serve the sick, the poor and the disabled. The sometimes hostile rhetoric has created hurt feelings, especially among clients of the agencies.

But none of that justifies the latest salvo from South Middlesex Opportunity Council, one of the town's leading social service agencies. SMOC filed suit in federal court this week demanding damages not just from town officials, but from citizens who have dared criticize the agency and challenge its plans.

SMOC's 99-page complaint piles up charges against selectmen and planning board members not just in their official capacity, but as individuals. It targets town employees, both named and unnamed. It calls for damages against four Framingham Town Meeting members and two citizens for comments made on a private Web site and e-mails distributed on a privately-operated mailing list.

SMOC hangs its suit on federal laws that prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities in housing, contending that objections to a home for recovering drug addicts are illegal. Anti-discrimination statutes do protect the disabled, and can appropriately be used against landlords and government bodies that deny housing. That is a point town officials have recently been making and it is a good one.

But federal civil rights laws aren't the only laws that apply in Framingham. There's another relevant law, called the First Amendment, that guarantees freedom of speech and the right to peacefully petition the government. When SMOC targets the personal finances of volunteers on town boards and ordinary citizens over expressions of opinion, it is abusing the law and undermining civic participation.

It's hard enough to get people to serve on Town Meeting without the added burden of knowing they could get dragged into federal court by a top Boston law firm for criticizing a nonprofit agency. A committee of volunteers worked for months, diligently and in good faith, to study the impact of social service agencies on the town. The effort was in some ways misguided and the conflicting reports that emerged didn't establish the consensus most hoped for. But those volunteers don't deserve to be punished for their trouble.

The inclusion of private citizens in this suit is even more regrettable. Yes, some of the comments posted on Web sites and included in e-mails are inflammatory, hateful, or inaccurate. But we don't need the First Amendment to protect speech that gets no one mad; if speech that offends a powerful organization isn't protected, no one's speech is really free.

There's nothing wrong with SMOC or any other applicant suing a planning board for a wrong decision or costly and unnecessary delays in making rulings; planning boards are sued all the time. If other town boards or town employees have violated laws, they should be sued as well.

What is worrisome about this suit is the broad brush it wields, painting a picture of a vast conspiracy to deny civil rights. The remedies it seeks are extreme, calling for the court to take over siting and regulation of two SMOC projects. One of those projects, a home for disabled veterans proposed on Lincoln Street, hasn't even entered the appeals process. The argument that neither the town nor the state courts are capable of resolving differences over a lodging house make us wonder how serious SMOC and its lawyers are.

This lawsuit, we're forced to conclude, isn't an attempt to resolve legitimate legal disputes. It isn't an effort to educate the public about the rights and needs of the disabled, nor is it an attempt to defend SMOC's clients. This suit is intended to intimidate its critics and punish town officials who stand in its way.

This page has counted itself among SMOC's strongest supporters. We consider its mission important and its critics, for the most part, off base. We think a local PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) program, one of the sticking points in the suit, is unnecessary, and that programs for people in need are a benefit, not a bane, to the community.

There ought to be room in Framingham for a civil discussion about siting social services and compensating the community for their costs. Unfortunately, this lawsuit appears to be designed to stop such a discussion, not facilitate it.