Hate-crimes Laws Stifle Free Speech

Man Sues California Mall After Guard Arrests Him for Having Conversation About God

February 10, 2010

Fox News - Imagine getting arrested for just striking up a conversation about religion in public.

That’s what happened to California resident Matthew Snatchko in 2006 when the youth pastor initiated a conversation about God with three shoppers at the Roseville Galleria mall.

The women gave Snatchko permission to broach the subject, but a nearby store employee said they "looked nervous," so he ordered the evangelist to leave. After Snatchko refused, mall security arrested him.

"He was put in handcuffs and hauled down to the mall’s security station and later booked at the local jail," said Snatchko’s attorney Matthew McReynolds of the Pacific Justice Institute, a legal defense organization specializing in the defense of religious freedom.

Snatchko was later released and never charged with a crime, but he and the Justice Institute decided to challenge the constitutionality of Roseville Galleria's restrictions on conversations about topics such as religion and politics.

"He wanted to make sure that neither he nor anybody else got harassed again at this mall or the 55 other malls this company owns throughout the United States," said McReynolds.

In 2008, a California superior court ruled that the mall's ban on controversial conversations with strangers didn’t violate freedom of speech.

But late last month Snatchko and the Justice Institute appealed to the state’s 3rd Appellate District in Sacramento. All parties in the case are now waiting for the court to schedule a date for oral arguments or issue a ruling.

Katie Dickey, spokeswoman for the Westfield Corporation, which owns the mall, would not comment on the case but issued a company statement saying that "everyone — regardless of race, color, creed, gender or religious belief — is welcome at our shopping centers."

Court documents claim that Westfield’s policy simply limits activities that have a "political, religious or other noncommercial purpose" to designated areas within the mall, in order to "minimize congestion." Speakers must submit a written application at least four days in advance. Access to the designated areas is then awarded on a "first come, first selected" basis.

Westfield argues in the court documents that mall security guards warned Snatchko on a number of occasions that he was violating the mall's Courtesy Guidelines by discussing religion with strangers. During one of his visits, guards even gave him a copy of the guidelines, but Snatchko continued striking up the same conversations without applying for a permit or sticking to the designated areas.

"By roaming the mall and randomly approaching other mall visitors, plaintiff effectively circumvents any attempt by Westfield to reasonably regulate his expressive activities in the mall’s common areas," the court document reads.

McReynolds confirmed Snatchko had been given the Courtesy Guidelines prior to his arrest but said the pastor "believed he was complying with them, and that they were being misinterpreted by the security guards who accused him of 'soliticing,' even though he was not selling anything."

McReynolds added that the mall has no right to regulate the kind of speech Snatchko was initiating.

"He’s never pushy, he doesn’t haul out the megaphone or large placards or anything like that -- he just asks people if they mind talking to him about issues of faith,” Snatchko said.

But California-based constitutional attorney Bo Links says the mall's restrictions are appropriate and fall within state guidelines.

"Their rules appear to be content-neutral, reasonable time, place and manner restrictions which are allowed," Links told FoxNews.com. "The fellow who was arrested clearly has free speech rights, and those rights apply to a shopping mall, but they're subject to reasonable regulation such as what the shopping mall seems to have had in place."

"It’s obviously a sensitive issue," he added, "but the shopping mall has a right to protect the people who are leasing stores and make sure there’s order in the marketplace and there was a way for this fellow to proselytize if he wanted to proselytize, he just didn’t want to do it the way the mall set it up."

But constitutional attorney John Eastman says that "to require a permit to even speak about your religious faith to anybody in the mall starts looking like it's unreasonable and might well be unconstitutional."

Eastman, a professor at California's Chapman University School of Law, says because Snatchko was seemingly engaged in a private conversation and not a public address, his speech would not have violated mall rules were it not for its content.

"There’s a decent argument that if the mall is not consistently applying this to all kinds of speech but is targeting religious speech or political speech then it is a content-based restriction ... and a content-based restriction like that would be unconstitutional," he told FoxNews.com.

McReynolds calls the incident a "national issue," especially because Westfield owns malls all over the country, but he says California is the best place to tackle it.

"Out here in California, because of the way our state constitution words its own free-speech clause, it’s been extended beyond the realm of just government property to large public venues like shopping malls."

Eastman warns that even if Snatchko wins his case, people outside of the state of California could find themselves in the same predicament.

"In other states, unless they’ve take the step in interpreting their own constitution that California took ... those malls are going to be treated as private property where they’ll have more control over the people who enter onto their property and a greater ability to set rules like these."

McReynolds said the ban is a "don’t talk to strangers" rule for adults.

"We think that’s beyond the pale of what the constitution allows and what free speech allows in this country and certainly in the state of California."

Lancaster, CA - Hate Crimes Harbinger?

February 10, 2010

OneNewsNow.com - The mayor of Lancaster, California, has apologized for pro-Christian comments he made recently before a group of pastors.

Mayor R. Rex Parris said in his address that Lancaster was "growing a Christian community," and after controversy developed he issued an apology. City Councilwoman Sherry Marquez posted on Facebook comments about a Muslim honor killing on the East Coast, thought better about it, and pulled the comments an hour and a half later. She has also apologized.

The Antelope Valley Human Relations Task Force responded and heard from community residents Monday night. Task Force chairman Darren Parker tells OneNewsNow that hate crimes charges against Parris and Marquez will not be sought.

"The organization will send a letter," he explains. "It was voted on by the entire body, recommended along with our legal counsel, that unanimously we would send a letter recognizing that in fact something had happened, and that in fact people were harmed by this."

Parker said the apologies were helpful. But the Council on American-Islamic Relations has filed a federal complaint against both parties. Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute complains that the case demonstrates that hate-crimes laws chill free speech.

"With the hate-crimes bill in place, this is probably just one example of many to come of attempts to try to silence people of faith," says the attorney. "And that's why we must aggressively correct this and make sure these individuals and their rights are protected against this kind of outrageous intimidation and silencing."

The letters from the Task Force, according to the Antelope Valley Press, were to tell Marquez that her remarks were "divisive and inflammatory" -- and the mayor that his were "divisive and exclusive rather than inclusive."

Singapore Denounces Pastor for Ridiculing Buddhists

February 9, 2010

Reuters - Singapore has warned a Christian pastor that his online videos are offensive to Buddhists and Taoists, underlining the city-state's concerns that religion is a potential faultline for its multicultural society.

Pastor Rony Tan, of Lighthouse Evangelism, apologized and pulled the video clips off the internet after being visited by the government's Internal Security Department on Monday, the pastor and the government said on their websites.

The Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement on Tuesday Tan's comments were "highly inappropriate and unacceptable," and could "give rise to tension and conflict between the Buddhist/Taoist and Christian communities."

The clips are no longer available online, but the Straits Times said they involved ridiculing beliefs, including Buddhist concepts of rebirth, karma and nirvana, drawing laughter from Tan's audience.

Singpore's move comes after rising religious tensions in neighboring Malaysia, where churches and mosques have been hit by arson and vandalism in recent weeks amid a row over the use of the word "Allah" by Christians.

Singapore last week arrested three youths aged between 17 and 18 for posting remarks on Facebook that have been deemed to be racist, local media reported.

They are likely to be charged under the Sedition Act, under which anyone found guilty of promoting feelings of ill will or hostility against other races or religions faces fines of up to S$5,000 ($3,520) as well as the possibility of being jailed for up to three years.

Singapore, which saw deadly racial riots in the 1950s and 1960s, is a base for many multinational companies which value its stability, infrastructure and proximity to fast-growing Asian markets.

Buddhists and Taoists account for half of Singapore's nearly 5 million population. Muslims and Christians account for 15 percent each.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a speech last August that religious and racial tensions were the country's biggest potential social faultlines.