LOS ANGELES — A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Monday prohibiting the city of Los Angeles from violating the First Amendment rights of a man who had been arrested for passing out religious material outside of an event at a public park.
“There is no such thing as second-class religious speech,” said Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney Frederick H. Nelson of the American Liberties Institute, who, along with ADF-allied attorney William J. Becker, Jr., of the Becker Law Firm, defended Cyril Gordon and Tuvya Zaretsky, members of the ministry Jews for Jesus. “As the court found, Mr. Gordon was simply exercising his constitutional right to share his faith. Although he was not interfering with the event, he was arrested anyway for trespassing. We are glad that the judge saw this for what it was: content-based discrimination.”
On Monday, the judge ruled that police had engaged in content-based discrimination when they arrested Gordon and that the city must take steps to ensure that the constitutional rights of members of Jews for Jesus are not violated in the future. The court wrote that their “First Amendment rights to distribute literature outside the Festival must be respected, regardless of any protest by Festival organizers.”
On May 7, 2006, Gordon was peacefully handing out Jews for Jesus literature at an Israel Independence Day event at Woodley Park. Gordon and Zaretsky, along with several other members of the group, had peacefully handed out literature outside the event, without incident, for the previous five years. Gordon was confronted by police and was told that he could not hand out the literature even though he was outside the fenced area setting the event apart from the remaining sections of Woodley Park.
The police informed Gordon that a festival organizer was making a citizen’s arrest and that he would be charged with trespassing. Gordon was arrested and taken into custody, and the charges were later dismissed after Gordon was required to post bail. Nelson and Becker subsequently filed suit in federal court on behalf of Jews for Jesus to protect the right of its members to pass out literature at this year’s event.
A copy of the preliminary injunction issued in the ADF-funded case
Jews for Jesus v. City of Los Angeles can be read at
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/JewsforJesusInjunction.pdf.
“This is a major victory for free speech, not only for Jews for Jesus, but for all other groups who wish to proclaim their faith,” said Becker. “We are thankful that Mr. Gordon, Mr. Zaretsky, and their fellow believers will be free to exercise their constitutional rights at this year’s event.”
ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
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