Arrested for reading the Bible

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Taken from here

Spoiler

The video begins with Mark Mackey opening his Bible.

“Good morning, everyone,” he says to a group of 15 onlookers waiting outside the Hemet California Division of Motor Vehicles. “I would like to read a little bit of the word of God this morning.”

The video, shot in February of last year, ends with Mackey’s arrest.

“You can preach on your own property,” an officer from the California Highway Patrol tells Mackey as he leads him away in handcuffs. “Folks, this is what the United States is coming to,” Mackey says to the crowd, who were standing outside waiting for the DMV to open. “You can talk about anything you want, but you can’t talk about the Bible.”




Mackey is a reverend with Calvary Chapel Hemet, a conservative Christian church that practices an “evangelical ministry,” requiring public testimonials and Scripture readings.

Church officials believe Mackey was arrested because of “Christian bigotry.”

The officer who made the arrest disagrees, claiming he arrested Mackey for preaching to a public audience who had no choice but to listen.

“You’re not allowed to preach here," he told Mackey, “because this is a captive audience.”

Mackey’s lawyer calls that “ridiculous.”

“That doesn’t make sense in America,” says Robert Tyler of Advocates for Faith and Freedom, a non-profit law firm which defends Christian Liberties. “If the doctrine of the captive audience is going to apply broad brush, no one is going to be allowed to [preach in] a public park…that’s not America.”

Tyler also points out Mackey was cited for “impeding an open business,” but he points out the DMV wasn’t even open at the time.

“The DMV was closed,” he said. “They had no business arresting him.”

Not so, observes constitutional attorney Dan Conaway, saying those waiting for the DMV doors to open have no choice but to listen to Mackey.

“He's creating an intimidating situation for people who simply want to get their drivers licenses renewed,” says Conaway, who says it’s OK to preach in public, but not when your listeners can’t leave.

“He does not have the right to intimidate others and force them to listen and impede their ability to do normal business activities such as going to the DMV.”

Tyler points out that the “captive audience” statute requires more than simple intimidation.

“Mackey had to be threatening them. Is reading the Bible threatening?”

Tyler says that, in the end, Mackey has simply been charged with trespassing.

How can that be trespassing?” Tyler asks. “This is a public place. He was not blocking or impeding anyone. He was standing over 50 feet from the entrance. This is crazy.”

Mackey sees it in biblical terms.

“The devil is holding everyone captive to do his will," he said as he was led away. “Repent, and trust in Jesus Christ. Judgment Day is coming, folks.”


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/29/taking-liberties-arrested-for-reading-bible/#ixzz1qWsGGmCi

So I'm reading this article over lunch today and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. On one hand I'm a big supporter of "freedom of speech" even if I don't agree with the speech (a rarity I know). However on the other hand, I understand the captive audience part as I know I wouldn't want to be waiting to get into the DMV and have to listen to this "gas bag". But then again, is this also just because I think he is a "religious nut job"? If this was someone calling Obama a putz, I would probably listen and smile.

I guess the problem I'm having with this is, I'm not convinced this would have happened if it had been about politics, or a street musician, juggler, magician, comedien, or pretty much any other topic. For some reason religion seems to scare others, especially the cops and authorities (my opinon with nothing to back it up).

I'm guessing even the tresspassing charge will eventually be dismissed.

 

I never knew such a law even existed. And I think you bring up some good points Snook.

1. Does this just apply to religious readings? Or is it illegal to give a speech about anything to a "captive audience"? I understand that it is considered a "captive audience" because they were waiting for the DMV to open up, and they couldn't leave unless they were willing to come back at another time when the guy wasn't preaching to get their license renewed.

2. On the other hand, if the only thing that is required to be considered "captive" is to not be able to do what you came to the location to do, it would seem like any public area would be off-limits to preaching/speaking (depending on the circumstances of 1) because unless the public area is a church/mosque/synagogue/temple/etc. the reason you came to the place wasn't to hear anyone speaking about a religious text. (No one goes to the park to hear someone read them passages from the Bible, as an example.)

3. Why is this illegal in the first place? Sure, I may not enjoy having to listen to this guy while I'm waiting in line, but is he causing any harm? I'm not sure this would qualify as harassment, and last I checked it's not against the law to be annoying.

 

Seems to me that this guy's actions could be construed as provocative at the very least. If he's free to preach at the DMV, anybody else there should then be free to shout him down if they're so inclined. This could potentially lead to open conflict - a fight, or maybe just a 'disturbance of the peace' (shouting, general unpleasantness, etc.) which the public is not supposed to have to suffer.

I don't quite get the trespassing charge though. I think you have to be told to leave a place twice before you can be considered a trespasser in that context (assuming local authorities would be able to deem someone a trespasser on public property at a public building in the first place). Was he told to leave and refused?

 

Does this mean that, if I'm standing in, say, an airport security line, and a couple of teenage girls behind me won't shut up about Justin Bieber, I can have them arrested? If so, then it sounds like a good law to me!

 

I don't think so Splunge, but you should at least be free to attack them with pies and whatnot.

 

I did not read the article but I think I know what they were trying to get him for and that is separation of church and state. Since isnt the DMV considered government property? And if someone tried to convert me to their religion I would tell them straight up to stop trying to push their religious views onto me and if they still would not quit I would tell them flat out that I was pagan and then start speaking in a weird language and if that didn't frighten them I would just walk off

 

I'm going to derail my own topic by going off topic, but this is one of those things that has always bothered me. I have always believed that the seperation of church and state was meant to mean that the state will not sponsor or require a religion. This has morphed into a crusade that somehow has made religion anathema to anything even remotely related to the government.

 

Just to check, was he actually on government "land" or was he using the public space nearby?

Basically, I don't have a problem with people freely preaching religious or ideological beliefs in public spaces with some obvious qualifications*. However, if you perform such activity on government property, and you are allowed to carry on, this implies that the government condones this activity. So if the guy was doing his ministering outside, it's ok by me. If he was actually on government property, then yes, he was in the wrong and should have been asked to leave - and if he disagreed, calling the cops was certainly acceptable.

Spoiler

As I understood it, the idea is that the public life and the spiritual life should be separate spheres, and neither should try to influence the other, especially at the institutional level. The secular authority shouldn't mess with the religious one, and vice versa. Their power works on different levels, though: the state declares what is legal, religious groups declare what is moral.

Of course, such separation was never perfect - essentially, it is a separation of power, and there is always the urge to get more. However, I think you are wrong to put the state as the only aggressor here; churches are just as active in pushing forward their views as anyone. The government is, in a sense, a battleground where a struggle of ideas takes place. Religious groups are very active and, I'd say, often successful players, but they face opposition from other groups who also want government to represent - and follow - their view. Sometimes religion is on the winning side, sometimes not.

As for religion being anathema to anything government-related, I'll believe that when US politicians stop saying "God Bless America" or the like in any major proclamation, or when an open atheist makes it to the white house. Until then, all the talk about how Christianity is persecuted in the US smacks of martyr complex.

*: such as:
a) they don't prevent others from using those places
b) they don't harass or verbally abuse people
c) they don't otherwise break the law (i.e. by inciting violence or by causing enough noise that they interfere with neighboring residents)

 

dmc hit the nail on the head.

 

I always felt that the separation of church and state also included not giving any type of preferential treatment to any religion, and that lack of preferential treatment had to be present not just in practice, but also in appearance. It may be felt that allowing the guy to preach there would be tacitly endorsing or showing support for his religion. And if you're going to let him do it, then you have to let people of all religious stripes do it, and that's not going to make everyone's trip to the DMV to be an even less enjoyable trip than it normally already is. ("Great, not only do I have to wait in line for an hour to get my license renewed, I have to deal with proselytizing nutjobs to boot.")

I read the article that both were true - that it was taking place right outside the DMV. So while he was outside, he was on the actual DMV property.

Funny you should mention that, given the current President. While Obama never misses a chance to say "God Bless America" at the conclusion of every speech, many feel that is just window dressing. Bush, and many of his predecessors would go to church nearly every Sunday. Obama is hardly ever seen in church. That's why it was very plausible when Obama said he wasn't at church the day that Jeramiah Wright made all those incendiary comments back when he ran for president in 2008 - Obama not being at church seems like the norm. Still, Obama is probably not an atheist at all, never mind an open atheist that you're wondering about. And I do not believe you'll see an open atheist as president any time soon.

 

Being a public nuisance is not religious freedom. The people in line were not at a park, where they could move to another section of the park. They were stuck in a line, and therefore I would argue his ridiculous yammering was a nuisance at best, harassment at worst.

It's funny, my Dad bugs serving staff at restaurants about religious stuff, and I try to get through his head that in many cases, all he is doing is leaving a bad taste in their mouths by taking advantage of the fact that they simply can't tell him to bugger off.

 

Or, even worse, anything which is public (outside your house).