Posted on 12/14/2004 9:29:21 AM PST by Map Kernow
A federal appeals court denied an emergency appeal to stop prosecution of 11 Philadelphia-area Christians who allege the District Attorney's office retaliated against them for exercising their constitutional rights at a homosexual event in which they were arrested and later charged with felonies.
As WorldNetDaily reported, on Oct. 10, the group was "preaching God's Word" to a crowd of people attending the outdoor Philadelphia "OutFest" event and displaying banners with biblical messages.
After a confrontation with a group called the Pink Angels, described by protesters as "a militant mob of homosexuals," the eleven Christians were arrested and spent a night in jail.
Eight charges were filed, including three felonies and five misdemeanors. The charges were criminal conspiracy, possession of instruments of crime, reckless endangerment of another person, ethnic intimidation, riot, failure to disperse, disorderly conduct and obstructing highways.
Early last week, the American Family Association's Center for Law & Policy filed papers in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania seeking a temporary restraining order that would prevent the city of Philadelphia from prosecuting the case.
Judge Petrese Tucker denied the Philadelphia 11's request, and the CLP immediately appealed the decision to the Third Circuit, which upheld it.
"This turn of events is beyond belief," said Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney for the CLP.
At the hearing, the CLP presented what it called "undisputed" video evidence that captured the "Outfest" events on tape, showing the Philadelphia 11 cooperated with police and were continually harassed by the Pink Angels.
None of the Pink Angels was cited or arrested.
"Despite the undisputed evidence placed before the court, our action for emergency relief was denied not once, but twice," Fahling added. "Many had thought an outcome like this ended at Selma.
"It seems that the Philadelphia 11 have become second-class citizens in the City of Brotherly Love," he said.
A preliminary hearing takes place today at 9 a.m. in Philadelphia.
The ethnic intimidation charge stems from Pennsylvania's "hate crimes" law – to which the newest "victim" category of "sexual orientation" was recently added. The protesters say a Philadelphia police officer told them that because they were on a public sidewalk they were permitted to move freely through the event. A few minutes later, however, they were arrested and removed.
The Philadelphia 11 face a maximum penalty of 47 years each in jail.
I believe our support of Israel is the only thing preventing the wrath of God from coming down on this country like a sledgehammer. We surely look a little more like Sodom and Gomorrha by the day.
MM
I do not take offense to the word "hell"; however, scripture uses it in a completely different context. Twisting scripture out of context is a very bad habit to get into, as it makes building a sound argument on scripture difficult.
I have read all of the posts up to this point, and I have yet to see anyone answer the points and questions that Jude has raised with anything other than insults and personal attacks. He made a fair point that not all Christian protesters are peaceable (some are, some are not), and further made a fair point that disobeying law enforcement officials trying to maintain crowd control is sufficient grounds for arrest.
That's for heretics, which I have yet to be accused of being.
Somehow, it has been twisted around by the left that to protect the voice of the minority, there must be suppression of the majority. That because they are the majority, their rights should not be upheld. This is so screwed up.
This is unreal!!!
How many is too many?
"When something that is written in the Bible, is classified as a hate crime, we are in big trouble....Not only is our freedom of speech being silenced, but our right to call evil what it is, sin, is being denied....The only group that seems to be silenced these days are Christians."
I totally agree. Hold on to your hat: it is already a hate crime in Canada to read the scriptures regarding homosexuality aloud, even by a pastor to his congregation, punishable by jail time. The scriptures calling it a sin and abomination are classified as "hate speech". If this isn't fascism, what is?
See this article from HumanEventsOnline:
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=4250
Their first mistake was thinking the Courts in Philly would be fair ..
And it doesn't matter if they have video to prove it
I watched on the Local Philly News, Don & Terry Adams get the crap beaten out of them by the Union Thugs and guess who was dragged into Court
Not the Union Thugs
I am afraid it will be here soon. The ACLU will see to it.
The silent majority better wake up fast.
Christians need to step up and speak the truth.
Parents pay attention to the garbage they are teaching your children in school and on the television. The brainwashing and desensitizing has been going on long enough.
Sodom and Gomorrah, meet your new friend, Philadelphia.
Seems if the gays didn't follow these guys around with the 8ft pink insulation boards when the police officers escorting them down the street to get them out of the way ... there wouldn't have been any problems
OutFest Festival Weekend Sunday, October 10th, 2004 in the GAYborhood!
Eight charges were filed, including three felonies and five misdemeanors. The charges were criminal conspiracy, possession of instruments of crime, reckless endangerment of another person, ethnic intimidation, riot, failure to disperse, disorderly conduct and obstructing highways.
My goodness they sure sound like a daaangerous group!
Alice's Restaurant
By Arlo Guthrie
This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the
restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant,
that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song Alice's
Restaurant.
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on
Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the
restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the
church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and
Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of
room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room,
seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't
have to take out their garbage for a long time.
We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it'd be
a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So
we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW
microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed
on toward the city dump.
Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the
dump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving." And we had never heard of a dump
closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off
into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.
We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the
side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the
cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile
is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we
decided to throw our's down.
That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving
dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the
next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie. He said, "Kid,
we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of
garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And
I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope
under that garbage."
After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we
finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down
and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the
police officer's station. So we got in the red VW microbus with the
shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the
police officer's station.
Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at
the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for
being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and
we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out
and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again,
which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's station
there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was
both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think I
can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid.
Get in the back of the patrol car."
And that's what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the
quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town of
Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened here, they got three stop
signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the
Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars,
being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to
get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of
cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer's station.
They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and
they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each
one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach,
the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not to
mention the aerial photography.
After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put
us in the cell. Said, "Kid, I'm going to put you in the cell, I want your
wallet and your belt." And I said, "Obie, I can understand you wanting my
wallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you
want my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings." I
said, "Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?"
Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the
toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown, and he took
out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars roll out the - roll the
toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie
was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice
(remember Alice? It's a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few
nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back
to the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat,
and didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.
We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten
colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back
of each one, sat down. Man came in said, "All rise." We all stood up,
and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy
pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he
sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the
twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog.
And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry,
'cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American
blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the
judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy
pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each
one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And
we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but thats not
what I came to tell you about.
Came to talk about the draft.
They got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street,
where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected,
neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one
day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so
I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. `Cause I wanted to
look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted
to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York,
and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all
kinds o' mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave
me a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the phsychiatrist, room 604."
And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I
wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and
guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill,
KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and
he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down
yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me,
sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."
Didn't feel too good about it.
Proceeded on down the hall gettin more injections, inspections,
detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin' to me
at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four
hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty
ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was
inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no
part untouched. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the
last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there,
and I walked up and said, "What do you want?" He said, "Kid, we only got
one question.
Have you ever been arrested?".....
Un-f**king-believable.
If God doesn't utterly destroy Phillie, He owes Soddom and Gomorrah HUGE apologies.
What kind of Lawyer do you happen to be, Jewish, or Moslem?
That was UNCALLED for!
Oh gee golly......I'm waiting breathlessly to hear of these Christian Terrorists, sport. Lay it on me.
Bet they smacked people with Bibles and such, didn't they????? Those BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!!
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