Suit Filed On Behalf of Ministry Volunteers Arrested in Chicago
by Jim Brown
July 21, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Volunteers with a Philadelphia-based Christian ministry claim they were harassed by authorities in Chicago, Illinois, for sharing the gospel with homosexuals who were in town for the city's "Gay Games," an Olympics-style sports event series for homosexuals. Three people with the evangelical group Repent America say they were handcuffed and arrested by Chicago police officers for passing out Christian literature to homosexuals and holding up signs with Bible verses near Navy Pier.
The evangelists had been warned that they would be arrested if they were caught handing out literature outside of certain designated "free-speech zones." But even after they moved across the street from Navy Pier as directed, the police returned and told the Christians they could not stay in that area and then arrested them.
Repent America filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order. Consequently, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority -- the government agency that runs Navy Pier -- agreed to allow the Christian group to continue their activity there. However, Chicago attorney John Mauck says the arresting officers had made it clear, at least one of them in profane language, that Repent America's message was not welcome.
It is not unusual, Mauck notes, for evangelical ministry workers and other believing individuals to encounter this kind of response. "There's a level of antagonism among some people against the Christian message, that it's politically incorrect or somehow insulting," he says.
But the people from Repent America were not at Navy Pier to insult or harass homosexuals, the Christian attorney insists. "In fact," he adds, "these are folks that so love gays that they're willing to spend a significant amount of time and even go to jail so they can tell them that there's hope."
The Christians' lawyer believes it was because of this very message that the three ministry workers were targeted. The lawsuit he has filed on behalf of the arrested believers alleges that their free-speech rights were violated by the city and by the police officers.
The Repent America volunteers were singled out for harassment, Mauck contends, by officials who saw these young evangelists from out of town and said to themselves, "Well, we can push them around, and nobody's going to complain -- and we're not going to have to worry about offending the homosexual activists."
So that is exactly what the local authorities did to the Christians -- "they just pushed them around," the Chicago attorney contends. "And if it weren't for the lawsuit and the federal courts," he adds, "they wouldn't be preaching the gospel right now" without the threat of arrest.
Mauck says he plans to go forward with the lawsuit against the City of Chicago and the police officers who arrested the Repent America workers. The suit seeks a court order that would prevent the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority from confining the plaintiffs to free-speech zones in the future.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
