Content provided in partnership with

Park policy in St. Louis challenged

St. Louis Daily Record & St. Louis Countian, May 2, 2008 by Donna Walter

A religious group is suing the city of St. Louis after a park ranger threatened to arrest two men who were distributing Gospel tracts at a 2006 gay pride festival.

Apple of His Eye Mission Society founder Steve Cohen and Alan Butterworth, senior missionary, say the city violated their First Amendment rights of religion and speech when they were forced to stop handing out leaflets on the afternoon of June 25, 2006, the second day of the two-day PrideFest, held in Tower Grove Park.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court in St. Louis. Judge Henry E. Autrey is overseeing the case. The plaintiffs want a declaration that they have the right to distribute leaflets in public parks and an injunction preventing city or park officials from silencing them again.

Most Popular Articles in Business: Research and Markets : Tesco Plc - SWOT Framework Analysis; Do Us a Flavor - Ben & Jerry's Issues a Call for Euphoric New Flavors; eBay made easy: ready to start an eBay business? These 5 simple steps will ...; Katrina's lawsuit surge: a legal battle to force insurers to pay for flood ...; Wal-Mart's newest distribution center opened last month near the southwest ...; More »

The city hasn't yet responded to the lawsuit, and no hearings have been scheduled on the preliminary injunction.

"We certainly wouldn't want to curtail anyone's First Amendment privileges at all, and don't," said John Karel, the director of Tower Grove Park. "But there are reasonable guidelines for the exercise of those privileges. And if someone is being disruptive or intruding in some way on the enjoyment of the park by another person, then that's where I think the ordinance [prohibiting leafleting] would naturally be applied."

The lawsuit challenges the city's written policy and alleges the city has an unwritten policy of allowing or barring speech based on its content.

The city ordinance, Chapter 22.16.100, prohibits distribution of "any advertisement, circular or handbill in or adjoining any public park, place or square." The ordinance is believed to be more than 100 years old. It was not immediately known if the law had been challenged previously on First Amendment ground.

The plaintiffs also allege Karel picks and chooses what groups can express their viewpoints.

"Oh, no, no, no, we wouldn't do that, as I say, unless it was hateful or provocative or discriminatory," Karel said in a telephone interview Thursday.

According to the lawsuit, Park Ranger Thomas Landwehr approached first Butterworth and then Cohen to tell them to stop distributing the broadsides. Butterworth put away the leaflets but kept talking about his faith. One of the PrideFest organizers complained, and Landwehr returned to tell the men to leave the park, the lawsuit alleges.

Cohen saw the exchange between Landwehr and Butterworth and described the scene in the society's August 2006 newsletter. "Alan was told that he would have to leave the property immediately because he was 'gay bashing,'" Cohen wrote. "As I watched on from a short distance away, I saw the park ranger take out his handcuffs and dangle them in front of Alan's face implying that if he did not leave immediately, he would be arrested. Of course Alan is not a basher -- but for those who claim that Christians are intolerant -- the actions of some of the leadership that day betrayed their own claims.

"You see, it was OK for people to parade around wearing buttons that declared 'Gay by God,' but it was not OK to ask people what they thought of Jesus and to carry on a simple conversation," he wrote.

The two men left the park without further incident.

The suit further alleges one of Karel's employees told the plaintiffs' lawyer that Karel can permit literature distribution as he wishes. The employee, identified only as Eve, told the lawyer that "religious literature distribution in Tower Grove Park would not be tolerated, but that if someone wanted to distribute literature for AIDS or diabetes related purposes such literature distribution would be allowed," the plaintiffs allege.

That's not exactly true, said Eve MacDonald, Karel's receptionist.

"Basically, anything can be done with the director's permission. But you can't just come in the park and hand out literature of any kind - whether it's for diabetes or religious or any other reason. ... You have to go through the park director. Now the park director, he can give permission to do pretty well anything he sees fit," she said Wednesday.

The lawsuit does not allege that Cohen, Butterworth or anyone from Apple of His Eye sought prior permission.

Karel, however, said there is no permitting process for leafleting and noted the city ordinance prohibits such activity.

"We feel that the park is a place where people come to enjoy their family, their friends, their activities and generally are not here to be educated on current political issues or events with which they might not have any interest. We try to apply a test of reasonableness to all these situations," he said.

C.J. Saenz, the president of PrideFest St. Louis, said he was at the festival in 2006 but is not aware of a festival organizer making this kind of complaint. He also said it's odd that anyone associated with the festival would complain to a park ranger because PrideFest St. Louis hires its own security for the festival.

"If someone came up to me and said, 'hey, I was really offended by this,' that's something I would encourage them to speak to our security about, and they would handle it in that manner," Saenz said. "If it was unlawful, the police would get involved. If it was something we just needed to talk about, an education thing, that's something we could address in a forum."

Park policy in St. Louis challenged

St. Louis Daily Record & St. Louis Countian, May 2, 2008 by Donna Walter

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Health

Most Popular Articles in Business

Most Popular Publications in Business