Campus evangelists clash with police

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | May 23, 2009

[Man50D]

A campus evangelism group is stunned today, as a ministry event at a community college in Ohio resulted in four members being arrested, one on a felony assault charge that the ministry's leader claims is fabricated.

"I've done ministries like this at more than 200 universities," said Jason Storms, director of Faithful Soldier School of Evangelism, a ministry of Mercy Seat Christian Church in Milwaukee, Wis. "We train people to do evangelism, and I have never seen an incident like this."

Storms and a team of students earlier this week traveled to Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, with signs, literature and a message of faith.

When they arrived, however, a student complaint led campus police to confront the evangelism team and demand that their signs and literature be put away in accordance with college policy. When two of the evangelists refused the order, however, insisting their materials were protected by the freedom of speech guaranteed in the First Amendment, the officers arrested them on charges of disorderly conduct.

"There are many times when police hassle us and intimidate or bully us on campus, and usually we stand them down and are successful in defending our rights to freedom of speech," Storms told WND. "I can count on one hand the number of times we've had an arrest situation."

Later in the afternoon, however, two more arrests followed, one on a now-disputed felony charge of striking a police officer.

[DJ MacWoW]

You said: And freedom of speech is a precious thing, he appears to deliberately abuse the use of it.

My suggestion to you is to read the whole article including the one from the newspaper in post 14. Oh and the legal comments in 14.

[Ben Ficklin]

see #39

[DJ MacWoW]

I do my own speaking.

[Caramelgal]

Myself, especially when WND is involved.

Doing that, you see that this is not Jason's first visit to this school, and he had to leave once before. The school explained the rules to both Jason and his lawyer. But he is back and he is trying to create an incident.

WND is not the most reliable source of information IMO.

And as I understand the 1st Amendment, we have the right to practice or not practice religion as we personally see fit and not have the government impede that freedom or establish an official State religion. We also have the right to free speech and to peaceably assemble.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

However the 1st Amendment no where implies we have a right to a captive audience for our views and peaceably assemble implies that there are some reasonable limits on how and where I can exercise my 1st Amendment rights.

For instance I can’t get together with a bunch of my friends and stand in the middle of I-95 with signs and placards and force motorists to take our pamphlets.

I also can’t walk into any building or institution unannounced; private or public and put on a demonstration especially if I harass or impede people from entering or leaving the building or attempt to force them to listen to my POV.

My take on this is that this group had been allowed on campus before but was asked to follow a few simple rules which they ignored. They were asked not to have signs and not try to force literature on people who didn’t want it. And that doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.

“Sinclair has set procedures for anyone who wants to speak on campus,” Gift said Wednesday night. “It is a public campus and we welcome anyone who wants to come and speak. All they have to do is follow the procedure.”

“Gift said two members of the group were disorderly when they were told they could stay on campus if they got rid of their signs and did not distribute literature unless someone asked for it.”

I’m all for people exercising their freedom of speech and religion and peaceable assembly whether I agree with them or not.

But their freedom to do so should not impinge on mine. If a group is peaceably assembled and has pamphlets, they have the right to offer me one and I have the right to accept it or refuse. On the other hand, if I refuse, they don’t have the right to follow me, harangue me, yell at me and otherwise infringe on my right to ignore them and go about my business.

[melsec]

Could have chiseled them out of rock - LOL

[brytlea]

Boy, wouldn’t he have had great arms! He could certainly have worn sleeveless tunics! ;)

[melsec]

Not one of my fantasies but you go right ahead LOL :-)

[swmobuffalo]

“My take on this is that this group had been allowed on campus before but was asked to follow a few simple rules which they ignored. They were asked not to have signs and not try to force literature on people who didn’t want it. And that doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.”

[DJ MacWoW]

Too bad FR is populated by parrots today and no one that does their own research.

Check out the evil people for yourself.

Faithful Soldier

[Gil4]

Is it constitution to prohibit people from carrying signs on public property? I wasn’t there and I don’t know anything about the group. But I did see one note here that at one point the authorities were attempting to confiscate a cell phone that was recording the incident. That sounds like an attempt to hide evidence to me.

[melsec]

Of course the campus Police had no right to try to attempt to take the cell phone - I imagine the cops behavior was not good and that’s why they wanted it.

Senior Campus staff are charged both with keeping order and the smooth running of campus activities. To ask people to comply with reasonable instructions to do so is not against freedom of speech.

The campus staff had asked them not to use signs - suely Christians of all people should show respect to the people in authority (see Romans). This ‘evangelism’ seems to be more about showing up a possible ‘freedom of speech’ breech than about preaching the Gospel.

Mel

[melsec]

People are parrots now because they don’t have the same opinion as you.

Good on thee people for spreading the word. That does not mean they behaved well by ignoring the campus’ reasonable requests.

[DJ MacWoW]

People are parrots now because they don’t have the same opinion as you.

Nope. They're parrots because they were directing me to others opinions by post number or directly quoting others opinions. What's the point of posting if all you do is post "See post ##"?

[Hardastarboard]

A real Australian on FR. Cool.

In the state I live in, the university police (state universities) are duly authorized deputies of the local town police. In my very brief experience they aren't as well trained or equipped, but are legally empowered to arrest you if necessary. I can't say about junior colleges, although they are part of the state school system here as well (they're public, two year colleges). I don't know if that clarifies it or not.

[Cedric]

I agree.

Clearly, the guy ran out of ammo.

[melsec]

Ok Fair enough!

[melsec]

Here we only have the standard citizens arrest powers plus we are Authorised Persons of the specific University - empowered to enforce the By-Laws of the University created by an act of Parliament - how’s that for a mouthful.

There are plenty of real Aussies on FR - Naturalman and Mitch5501 for starters.
Hope you enjoy our slightly different take on conservative matters.

Mel