City drops threat to jail Christian

City drops threat to jail Christian

wnd.com

A man who was threatened with jail for sharing his Christian faith at an annual Italian festival in Buffalo, N.Y., last year will be allowed to attend and declare his beliefs without harassment this year.
That’s the result of a consent order issued by U.S. District Judge William Skretny in a lawsuit over a confrontation by police, who forced Gregory Owen to shut up at the city’s festival on public property last year.

“People of faith shouldn’t be threatened with arrest for peacefully expressing their beliefs,” said Nate Kellum of the Center for Religious Expression, one of the more than 2,100 attorneys in theAlliance Defense Fund.
“The city has done the right thing in allowing Gregory to peacefully speak with willing passers-by and hand out literature this year, just as the Constitution allows,” he said.
The order, to which the city agreed, is a preliminary injunction that allows Owen to speak to others attending the Greater Buffalo Italian Heritage Festival, which starts July 12.
“Court precedent in these types of cases is clear: Officials can’t toss someone out of a public event simply because they don’t like the views he’s expressing,” added Jonathan Scruggs, an ADF litigation counsel. “Our lawsuit will continue until the city makes needed changes to fully respect the constitutionally protected rights of faith-based speakers. City officials should be commended for taking a great first step in that direction.”
The event last year also was free and open to the public. Owen, together with a friend and members of his family, was walking up and down Hertel Avenue during the 2011 festival. He was handing out Christian literature and talking about his faith “in a non-disruptive manner with willing passers-by.”
Police soon approached Owen and ordered him to leave under threat of arrest. The officers claimed his speech violated an agreement with festival organizers. One officer told Owen, “If you hand out one more tract, you’re going to jail,” ADF reported.
ADF said: “In truth, the city issued a non-exclusive use permit to festival organizers that does not prohibit members of the public from exercising their free speech rights protected by the First Amendment. The event was free and open to the public, and the street remained at all times a public thoroughfare.”
ADF’s original complaint explained an officer told Owen that the Buffalo Police Department is “the law,” and he should stop handing out tracts.
“Subsequently, another police officer, Officer Slomka, arrived on the scene. She quickly informed Owen that they could not hand out tracts in the festival and explained that the prohibition was ‘by our orders.’ Owen asked for her name, and she replied: ‘Slomka, write it down.’ Owen advised that he believed the tracts to be free speech; nonplussed, Officer Slomka reiterated that they couldn’t hand out tracts there and had to go outside of the festival area to continue with their expressive activity,” the complaint said.
“Owen inquired as to whether they would be arrested if they continued to hand out tracts in the festival area, to which Officer Slomka replied: ‘Yes.’”
City officials have declined to respond to a WND request for comment.
Ultimately, the complaint said, a Capt. Blosat ordered Owen and the others to leave the public street.
The case alleges violations of freedom of speech and due process and seeks a judgment that the Buffalo police were in violation of Owen’s constitutional rights.
“The ban on Owen’s literature distribution continues to chill and deter Owen’s religious expression,” the complaint states, especially, since Owen “observed that these decisions appear to turn on the message.”
The dispute is just the latest in a number of cases in which municipalities have infringed on the free-speech rights of Christians. Cases have included bans on Christian speech at city festivals and the confinement of Christian street preachers to designated “zones.”
A recent case arose in Dearborn, Mich., where authorities sought to prevent a minister from speaking in public. City officials, who recently had been ordered to pay $100,000 for violating the rights of Christians, demanded the pastor sign a “Hold Harmless” agreement that essentially required the minister to “surrender all of his legal rights” in order to speak on public property.
That dispute was argued by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of a pastor who preaches on radical Islam, same-sex “marriage” and other hot-button topics.