CHICAGO - A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit ruled unanimously Tuesday that the City of Madison, Wis., did not make its case in arguing that it did not violate the constitutional rights of a man forbidden from protesting on a highway overpass.
"The court properly recognized that government officials may not censor speech they think the public might disagree with," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Nate Kellum, who argued before the court April 13. "Speech cannot be banned simply because it might offend those who hear it. The court determined that the City of Madison had insufficient evidence to show they had made every effort to protect our client's First Amendment right to free speech."
The protestor, Ralph Ovadal, held a sign expressing his religious viewpoint on homosexual behavior while standing on the sidewalk of a highway overpass in Madison in 2003. Police eventually forbade Ovadal from displaying his sign on any overpass in Madison, claiming that his message was offending drivers and causing them to drive in an unsafe manner.
According to the appeals court opinion, which reversed a district court's decision that granted summary judgment to the city, "it is the reckless drivers, not Ovadal, who should have been dealt with by the police...." The full text of the decision can be read at
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/OvadalOpinion.pdf.
"It is the obligation of police to maintain order when unpopular speech disrupts it, not to silence the speaker," Kellum explained. "The law does not allow a driver to act irresponsibly because he sees a sign with a message he doesn't like. Likewise, the police cannot squelch someone's free speech rights because someone might fail to properly control their vehicle as the law requires."
The case,
Ovadal v. City of Madison, was originally filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.
ADF is America's largest legal alliance defending religious liberty through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
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