ADF Hails Judgment Upholding Street Preachers' First Amendment Rights
by Ed Thomas
May 12, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A federal district court judge has ruled that actions designed to prevent two Christians from preaching and proselytizing near a homosexual event in a Pennsylvania city park were unconstitutional restrictions of free speech. The declaratory judgment follows a jury's similar finding last December regarding one of the men's subsequent arrest during a 2003 "Pridefest" event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Prior to the arrest of Pastor Jim Grove, he and Repent America leader Michael Marcavage were prevented from making contact with or preaching to people entering Riverfront Park for the Pridefest celebration while they were inside a permitted festival area that was not being used at the time. Police also tried to enforce an imaginary 50-foot no-speech zone against the two men to keep them away from the homosexual event.
Alliance Defense Fund-affiliated attorney Leonard Brown represents Grove and the Christian organization to which he belongs, Worldwide Street Preachers Fellowship. The lawyer says U.S. District Judge William Caldwell of the 3rd Judicial Circuit ruled that both actions by the police were violations of the Christians' free-speech rights.
"Our clients were outside of the confined area," Brown points out, "in an area of the park that people were using like people normally use a park -- to walk their dogs, to ride their bikes, to jog -- and the police kicked them out because of the content of their message. So that's what the judge said was unconstitutional."
The outcome in this case, Worldwide Street Preachers Fellowship v. Reed, is important to Christians who want to witness at Pridefest and other future events in the park, the ADF-allied attorney asserts. Hopefully, he says, the judge's ruling has helped to "seal the deal" legally on a religious free-speech victory.
There are two parts to the ruling, Brown explains. "We had a jury trial in December, where a jury found the two officers had arrested Pastor Grove in violation of the First Amendment," he notes. "The second part was asking the court for an injunction and declaration, as a matter of law, that what the city was doing violated the Constitution."
The ADF-member litigator says he and his clients are pleased that the court correctly recognized the unconstitutionality of the Harrisburg officials' actions. "Mr. Marcavage and Mr. Grove's right to free speech in Riverfront Park and elsewhere can no longer be hindered by the city's restrictive ordinance," he says.
"Christian speech should not be treated differently than any other kind of speech," Brown insists. He says the ruling in this case clearly shows that other Harrisburg officials violated basic constitutional guarantees when they had a city police officer stop Groves and Marcavage from speaking in the vicinity of the Pridefest celebration.
ADF has won major decisions in two other similar free-speech cases in separate federal districts this year. Brown believes those court victories may have helped to set a precedent for the ruling in the case involving Pastor Groves. The attorney says he hopes this latest win will put an end to any policy of discrimination against public street preachers by the city of Harrisburg.
Ed Thomas, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
