Federal court orders Louisiana town to stop using state laws to prevent pro-life signs
Judge grants preliminary injunction requested by ADF-allied attorneyMONROE, La.—A federal judge ruled Thursday that the town of Columbia can no longer use three state laws to prevent pro-life advocates from displaying signs that feature aborted babies.
“The court agreed that these laws were illegitimately applied and barred their enforcement against my clients,” said ADF-allied attorney Randall Wenger of the Lancaster, Pa., law firm Clymer & Musser, P.C. Wenger represents the ministry organization of which the pro-life advocates are members. “We expect Columbia officials to respect the court’s order.”
Judge Robert James of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, Monroe Division, granted Wenger’s motion for preliminary injunction in part, demonstrating that Columbia officials wrongly applied Louisiana’s statutes on resisting an officer; stopping, standing, or parking in specified areas; and staging a procession without a permit to members of the World Wide Street Preachers’ Fellowship. In February, members of the group stood on public property and held signs depicting images of aborted children.
One member of the group was thrown in jail for two days after being cited, and others were threatened with arrest. James placed a temporary restraining order on town officials March 23.
“The court’s decision today shows that police should not have arrested anyone in the group under any of those three statutes,” Wenger said. “The police clearly expressed their disapproval of the content of the signs due to phone calls from some offended members of the public, but those are not legitimate reasons for citing and arresting someone.”
Wenger filed the suit, World Wide Street Preachers’ Fellowship, et al., v. Town of Columbia, Louisiana, on March 22. The full text of the court’s ruling can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/WWSPFvCol_opinion.pdf.
ADF is America’s largest legal alliance defending religious liberty through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
