'Constitution State' Troopers Trample Pro-Lifers' Rights
by Rusty Pugh
August 4, 2004
(AgapePress) - Two pro-life activists who say they were illegally detained and harassed by Connecticut state police are getting some legal help.The American Family Association Center for Law & Policy has announced it will defend Pastor Dennis Green and Michael Marcavage. The pair were driving a truck with pictures attached that show the reality of abortion along Interstate 95 in Connecticut. A state trooper, who Green says was angry about the graphic pro-life pictures, pulled them over.
The minister says because of verbal abuse and ignorance of the law on the part of the troopers, the situation quickly deteriorated. Finally it worsened to the point that the police ordered Green to leave the state without stopping and arrested Marcavage because he attempted to videotape the police harassment.
Green says the officers' actions were reminiscent of Hitler's Gestapo. "I don't want to paint all officers with this brush," the pro-life pastor says, "because it's not this way, but very often nowadays we encounter this. If you have a police officer who has his own agenda and his own opinions, with a gun and with a badge and that authority, he can push you."
And the attitude that he and Marcavage encountered in the Connecticut incident is one Green says Christian activists are forced to confront with increasing frequency these days. "We've seen that more and more," he says, "whether working on the sidewalks of abortion clinics or preaching the gospel on the street or with the trucks. That seems to be the way the nation is moving, a little more toward an intolerance toward Christianity, the gospel, and the pro-life message."
AFA attorney Brian Fahling calls the behavior of the Connecticut state troopers a "picture perfect example of how to mishandle First Amendment issues." His firm says the "reckless and lawless" manner of the troopers has opened the door for a federal lawsuit.
