This has got to be one of the dumbest and lamest excuses for passing a city ordinance I’ve seen in a long time.
The city of Jacksonville, NC has passed an ordinance requiring pro-lifers in groups as small as 2 people to obtain a permit in order to pray outside the local abortion clinic. When Dr Bartolo and other pro-lifers gathered on the public sidewalk in front of the abortion clinic, the police asked them to move and sited the ordinance.
When asked to justify the ordinance, the police chief cited safety concerns in case a car ran off the street, jumped the curb and hit one of the protesters.
That makes as much sense as the city ordinance in Ft. Huachuca, Arizona that states it is illegal to shoot a buffalo on city streets. Not only are there no buffalo in or around Ft Huachuca but there never have been.
Peter Breen, spokesman for the Thomas More Society, said that their organization has filed a lawsuit against the city for the violation of the group’s First Amendment rights to free speech and their right to peaceably gather. In his comments, Breen stated,
“They have demanded that groups as small as two or three get a permit before they stand on a public sidewalk, public right of way, just to express their First Amendment rights and to pray. So these permit requirements for very small groups are overbroad; they’re unconstitutional. We’ve got case law right on-point… The police chief claimed that a car could run off the road and hit the pro-life picketers, so they said that that would be unsafe – just in case a car ran off the road at that particular location.”
This is one of many instances demonstrating just how far pro-abortion advocates will go, even to the point of violating the constitutional rights of others, to protect their murderous practices. I pray that not only does the Thomas More Society win the case, but that all of the city officials in Jacksonville that were involved in the passing of this ordinance, lose their positions in city government and are ordered to make restitution to the pro-lifers.
