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DC Anti-Abortion Chalk Art Protesters Get Preliminary Injunction

By Howard M. Friedman

On Friday, a group of Christian activists filed suit in federal district court in Washington, DC seeking to prevent DC police from interfering with their planned chalk-art demonstration near the White House on January 24 to protest Barack Obama's support of abortion rights. (Christian Defense Coalition press release.) When they applied for a demonstration permit, police informed them that chalking would constitute illegal defacement of public property. (See prior posting.) The complaint (full text) in Mahoney v. District of Columbia, (D DC, filed 1/16/2009), alleges that police threats of criminal sanctions against them for engaging in their planned demonstration violates their First Amendment speech and religion rights, their religious exercise rights protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and violates the DC Police Standards Act of 2004 (DC Code Sec. 5-331.04). It appears from the record of the case on PACER that the court issued a preliminary injunction in the case, though no copy of it is yet available from court records.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on January 18, 2009 (boomark / email).