TOLEDO, Ohio — A federal court has ruled that an Ohio town violated the First Amendment rights of pro-life advocates when police officers threatened them with arrest for engaging in pro-life speech. Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Findlay on behalf of the pro-life advocates.
"Christians shouldn't be penalized for expressing their beliefs," said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. "Exercising your First Amendment rights is not a crime. The government has no right to harass and threaten citizens for exercising their First Amendment rights in public."
On July 31, 2007, Pastor Matthew Trewhella, Michael Marcavage, and volunteers from Missionaries to the Preborn were peacefully holding up signs promoting a pro-life message at an intersection in Findlay. The chief of police and two officers demanded that the group leave or face arrest, claiming that they needed a permit to present their message. After leaving the area, Marcavage contacted the mayor's office and soon discovered that no ordinance actually covered their activity and that the mayor's permit scheme should not have been applied to sign-holding.
In the opinion declaring the city's policy unconstitutional, the court wrote, "This permit scheme grants the City virtually unchecked discretion to deny permits for content based reasons. There are no objective standards by which the City is bound when considering whether to issue a permit.... Defendants' arguments to the contrary are not only baseless, but, even worse, border on bad faith."
"The government can't require Christians to request permission before they exercise their First Amendment rights on a public sidewalk," said Bowman. "We hope that Pastor Trewhella and other pro-life advocates will now be free to express their views without fear of government intimidation and censorship."
A copy of the opinion issued Wednesday by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Western Division, in
Trewhella v. City of Findlay is available at
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/TrewhellaOpinion.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