Wednesday, September 29, 2010

How to Know that Your Country Has Been Colonized, Part LXXVII

When your own country’s law enforcement become quislings on behalf of the colonizers.

Powerline reports:

We wrote here about the criminal prosecution of Christian evangelists in Dearborn, Michigan, who had the temerity to pass out the Gospel of John on a public street, a block or two away from an area where a Muslim festival was going on. They were charged with disorderly conduct; you can see how disorderly they actually were in this video:

Now, via Andy McCarthy at The Corner, we learn that the evangelists have been acquitted of the criminal charges against them:

Much to the barely concealed chagrin of the Detroit Free Press, the Christian evangelists who were arrested for distributing St. John's gospel on a public street outside an Arab festival in Dearborn, Michigan, a few months back have been found not guilty of breaching the peace. One of the four defendants was apparently found guilty of the less serious offense of failing to obey a police officer's order.

The policeman's order violated the First Amendment, so that conviction should be subject to reversal. It is good that a Michigan jury didn't buy this plainly unconstitutional prosecution, but the story, taken as a whole, is sobering. These evangelists incurred expenses that must have been well into five figures, at a bare minimum, and on top of that had a legitimate fear of criminal conviction--all for engaging in activity that falls within the heart of the First Amendment's protection.

H.T.: Ace.

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