http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=827542Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) is appealing a decision to permit a bad speech policy to stand while a lawsuit against Georgia Southern University proceeds.
christ cross banIn March of last year, Benjamin Bloedorn visited the campus to distribute tracts and talk about his faith with students in a free-speech area of the school. ADF attorney Nate Kellum picks up the story.
"Some officers affiliated with Georgia Southern said basically he could either keep quiet, stop talking about Jesus, or be arrested -- and while he was trying to confer with the officers about this, they just decided to arrest him," Kellum explains.
According to the attorney, Bloedorn was also told he had to have permission from the university to exercise his constitutional right to free speech.
Nate Kellum (Alliance Defense Fund)Later a trespassing charge was dropped, but Bloedorn was told not to return to the campus to share his faith. The federal court refused to grant a restraining order to prevent enforcement of the campus policies. Kellum expects that decision to be overturned.
"We don't think the court of appeals will view it the same way -- so...while the case is still ongoing, we appealed this decision about the constitutionality of the ordinance to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals," he says. "And we're very hopeful the 11th Circuit will see it very differently."
Numerous court rulings in similar cases would tend to back up that claim.