Bud Reeves, president of the Sanctity of Human Life Network Inc., reports that he was intercepted at a Tea Party rally in Sacramento on Saturday and ordered to stop distributing pro-life pamphlets to attendees.

The event was sponsored by NorCal Tea Party Patriots and held at the Cal Expo in Sacramento. Scheduled speakers, among others, included U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock, Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center and a contributor to Fox News, radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, and Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute.

“Today I attended the Sacramento area gathering of the Tea Party to hand out prolife tracts,” said Reeves in an April 16 email. “Given that the Tea Party purports to be an organization promoting the U.S. Constitution and all that it stands for, I thought my handing out of a small prolife tract promoting the most important civil right, the right to life, would be welcome. I was wrong. Not long after we started passing out the 7 thousand tracts we had printed for the event, we were told that we must stop the distribution, which was welcomed by most of the attendees we approached and who received the tract.”

Reeves said he asked why and was told, “Because we will not be involved in the ‘social issues.’ I asked to talk to a supervisor. I was escorted up to the stage area and when a supervisor did not appear, I returned to the crowd to continue handing out the tracts. Not long after I heard my name on the P.A. system, asking me to respond. I did so and was met by Mr. Rapini, the organizer of the Tea Party event.