LOS ANGELES — The city of Los Angeles has agreed to settle a federal lawsuit filed by Alliance Defense Fund attorneys and allied attorneys on behalf of representatives of Jews for Jesus. Police arrested a member of the group for handing out religious material outside of an event at a public park.
"Christians shouldn’t be penalized for expressing their beliefs," said Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney Frederick H. Nelson of the American Liberties Institute, who filed the lawsuit together with ADF and ADF-allied attorney William J. Becker, Jr., of the Becker Law Firm. "Exercising your First Amendment rights is not a crime. Arresting Christians simply because they choose to exercise their First Amendment rights in a public place is unconstitutional."
On May 7, 2006, Cyril Gordon, a member of the ministry Jews for Jesus, was peacefully handing out ministry literature at an Israeli Independence Day event at Woodley Park. Members of Jews for Jesus had been peacefully providing literature outside the event without incident for the previous five years. Police confronted Gordon, telling him that he could not hand out the literature even though he was outside the fenced area that set the event apart from the remaining sections of Woodley Park.
On April 2, 2007, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the city from violating the First Amendment rights of the Jews for Jesus representatives while the lawsuit moved forward (
www.telladf.org/news/story.aspx?cid=4063). As part of the new settlement, the city agreed to making the preliminary injunction permanent, protecting the right for Jews for Jesus to distribute literature at future events.
"Christians have the same First Amendment rights as anyone else in America," said ADF Legal Counsel Tim Chandler, who served as co-counsel on the case. "The First Amendment’s free speech protections exist to protect precisely this type of religious speech. We are pleased that members of this ministry will be able to exercise their rights without fear of arrest in the future."
A copy of the stipulated permanent injunction in the case,
Jews for Jesus v. City of Los Angeles, is available at
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/JJPI.pdf. A copy of the voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California is available at
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/JJdismissal.pdf.
ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.
www.telladf.org