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On Monday, a lawsuit was filed against Georgia Southern University officials on behalf of a Christian man arrested for sharing his faith in the campus’s “free speech area.” A university official and campus police officer told the man that he needed to apply for a permit to exercise his free speech rights before he was eventually thrown in jail.
In March 2008, Benjamin Bloedorn visited a “free speech area” on the Georgia Southern University campus with a few friends to share a Christian message with students through signs, literature, and conversation. After situating himself in a grassy area beside the Russell Union Student Center pedestrian mall and rotunda, a university official told Bloedorn and his colleagues that they had to fill out a permit application to have their expression reviewed and approved. The forms, which must be submitted two days prior to a requested speaking engagement, require detailed personal information as well as the proposed topic and time of the expression.
Bloedorn and his friends considered the burdensome process invasive and in violation of their constitutional rights. When they continued to share their message with passersby, an officer interrupted their activity, insisted that they were trespassing on “private property,” and stated they needed university permission to speak on campus. When Bloedorn resumed speaking, he was abruptly taken into custody by university police officers, who handcuffed Bloedorn and drove him to a holding cell before he was transported to city jail, where he was held for nearly six hours. He was later released on bail, and the trespassing charge was dropped. Bloedorn has refrained from returning to campus to share his faith out of fear of arrest.
Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed the complaint in Bloedorn v. Grube with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. ADF-allied attorney Charles Stebbins, III, of the Augusta law firm Warlick, Tritt, Stebbins & Murray, LLP, is serving as local counsel in the lawsuit.
Comments
Do you really this way of "sharing your faith" may lead people to God? Shouting in a university like this just makes you look like a bully.
RE: Maxou;
Read the article and stop reading pictures!
I think the man should have obtained a permit, it didn’t sound too difficult and the university may very well have had good reasons for requiring one. Furthermore Christ calls us to spread the gospel, not to annoy people and give authority a difficult time. Okay I don’t really know if he was being annoying, but it seems it’s becoming increasingly popular for Christians to shout their message at crowds who don’t want to hear it (such as gay parades for example). What good does it do if no one receives it? People receive God when THEY SEEK him, not because someone convinced them that it’s the right thing to do. We ought to be more focused on people’s needs, which is a more effective way to show people Jesus’ love.
Actually, he does yell at students. Whether or not he was doing it on the day he was arrested, I don't know. But if he is, in fact, the man that I saw in that same patch of grass numerous times before, I think this story may be putting a little bit of an unfair spin on the university. His message isn't what people are angry about, but rather the very obnoxious way he chooses to present it.
The offended parties aren't all the stereotypical spiritually lost college students either. Keep in mind that Statesboro is in the heart of the south and many of those he was condemning to Hell were devout Christians.
Let us also not forget that he had been on campus before without issue. I can only assume that he did not find the forms too difficult at this time.
I may not entirely agree with the free speech zone premise, but if he intentionally ignored this and went on campus anyway, this isn't exactly the religious persecution arguement the above story seems to allude to.
Being annoying is not a reason to deny someone their free speech rights under the Constitution. The Constitution does not say that, "if the person or persons are annoying you, you may deny them their free speech rights." No, too many people are wanting to silence people who do not believe as they do. This is the height of intolerance, and it is becoming a common occurrence amongst those who say they are open-minded and want diversity. The University of Miami in Ohio was another university that tried to staunch religious freedom of speech by using this same unconstitutional tactic as Georgia Southern University, but thankfully, Ohio's Appeals Court ruled in favor of the Christian man's freedom of speech rights and the university has had to change their campus policies toward visitors that want to speak on the campus without having to go through all the tedious paperwork in advance of their visit to the campus. Shame on these universities that try to silence a person’s free speech ri
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