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Posted on 10/9/2006, 6:06:34 AM by Coleus
FLORENCE, S.C. (AP) - The city of Florence has decided to pay an anti-abortion group $51,000 to settle a lawsuit over whether the group needed a permit for a protest four years ago.
"We decided rather than go on and fight this thing in court to settle it since we weren't enforcing it anyway," City Manager David Williams said.
The 30-member group Columbia Christians for Life was in Florence in August 2002 to start a statewide tour protesting abortion. Five of its members were arrested.
Before the protest, city officials told the group they had to apply for a parade permit. The group challenged the ruling, refusing to sign the permit, even after Florence Police Chief Anson Shells came to the protest with the permit application.
"We bent over backwards to get them to comply, but they weren't willing to do that," Williams said.
The city decided to pay the group $51,000 to settle the suit because similar ordinances had been ruled unconstitutional in Charleston and Travelers Rest, Williams said.
"We had a court case that indicated the language in our ordinance was perhaps unconstitutional. We wanted to minimize any monetary damages to the city," the city manager said.
Williams said more than half of the settlement was paid to the group's lawyer.
Columbia Christians for Life Director Steve Lefemine said the demonstration was protected through the group's rights of free speech and free assembly.
"I thank the Lord for upholding our God-given, inalienable and constitutional protected rights to peacefully assemble, exercise free speech and exercise freedom of religion on a public sidewalk without having to have a permit from the government to do so," Lefemine said Monday night.
The group announced the settlement this week even thought the case was settled in March.
"I had the order and just didn't get around to sending it out," Lefemine said.
I have friends near Florence (Coward, actually). I'll have to email this to them and see if they heard anything about this.
This sentence makes me laugh. "perhaps unconstitutional" How about a denial of First Admendment rights?
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