Officials Drop Charges Against Street Preacher Arrested in Kansas
by Allie Martin
August 11, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Officials in one city have dropped all charges against a man arrested for preaching on public property in the State of Kansas. Last May, Michael Wheeler was praying and talking about his Christian beliefs on a public sidewalk near the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City when Center police arrested him for trespassing and charged him with preaching on state property. Wheeler contacted the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), which filed a legal motion to dismiss the case.
David LaPlante, Litigation Counsel with the ADF, says the charges have now been dropped -- charges that should never have been filed in the first place. As some public officials seem to forget, "religious speech is not second-class speech," the Alliance-affiliated lawyer says, "and that is exactly what happened in this case."
LaPlante emphasizes the fact that Wheeler was on a public sidewalk in Kansas City, Kansas, when he was arrested. "The U.S. Supreme Court has clearly ruled that everybody has the freedom to express their religious beliefs on a public sidewalk, a public street, or [in] a public park," he contends, "and they should be able to do so without fear of arrest.'
ADF legal representatives are also defending Wheeler in a case in another case in Kansas City, Missouri, where police arrested him and his wife for preaching on a public street corner. LaPlante describes the rights the Christian street preacher is asserting in these cases as "absolutely primary" and well supported by legal precedent.
'The United States Supreme Court has held that people, regardless of their faith, can communicate their religious beliefs on public property," the attorney points out. "This goes back to a U.S. Supreme Court case in like 1946 -- and it's true today," he says. "The First Amendment protects public religious speech."
Nevertheless, in the current cultural climate, LaPlante notes, things do not always work out that way. "A lot of speech is protected," he observes. "We've got people talking about all kinds of things, [yet], as soon as a Christian gets up to speak, they have a problem.'
But in the case of Wheeler's arrest by the KU Medical Center police, his lawyer acknowledges that the authorities eventually did the right thing by dropping the charges shortly after he filed the motion to dismiss. Apparently, he suggests, city officials recognized that preaching and praying in public does not constitute trespassing.
"Public property is just that -- open to the public -- and that includes Christians," LaPlant insists. He says people should have to fear arrest simply because they decide to present their religious views on public property, and when something like this happens, Christians need to take a stand for their rights.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
