Church's street ministry attacked

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JACKSON COUNTY-The city of Jefferson's police chief wants a group of anti-abortion protesters to tone down their act and has asked the Jefferson City Council to adopt an ordinance to help him do that.

But the pastor whose church stages the regular protests says the Jefferson Lighthouse Baptist Church will fight any ordinance the city passes that would limit church members' right to express themselves.

A group of a dozen or more church members regularly gathers on Saturday mornings - often in Jefferson - holding up signs with anti-abortion slogans and handing out anti-abortion pamphlets.

The church has held these weekend events regularly for the past 15 years, said the Rev. Kevin Whitman, the church's pastor for the past nine years.
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But they're a street ministry, not a demonstration, Whitman said.

In the past and now, the group has demonstrated without a problem - not just in Jefferson, but in other places like Commerce; Hendersonville, N.C.; Greensboro, N.C.; and Atlanta, Whitman said.

In only two places, Hendersonville and Jefferson, has there been any government attempt to tone down the group's message, he said.

But in the past few months, the church members have added two new visual aids - at first, a ketchup-covered baby doll, now replaced with large placards that purport to be photographs of aborted fetuses, body parts of fetuses and the like.

One of the placards shows a life-size photograph of a newborn or near-full-term fetus, its head crushed and jaw nearly severed.

"The picture is the problem," said Jefferson Police Department Lt. Steven Bannister.

The baby and the fetus photos have horrified children in cars passing by and elicited a wave of unhappy telephone calls from their upset parents and other citizens, said Jefferson Police Chief Joseph Wirthman.

"I thought these signs were beyond the pale," Wirthman said.

As a handful of church members shouted their message Saturday morning from the driveway of Wal-Mart on U.S. Highway 441, most shoppers either ignored the demonstration or gawked at the photographs for a second or two.

A few shouted insults or asked the church members to go away.

"I think it's ridiculous," said Chris Collins, of Jefferson. His family - including his 5-year-old son - came to shop, but had to pass the anti-abortion photos to get to the Commerce store's one entrance.

"I support what they are saying, but the use of the photographs, especially for people with small children, is obscene," Collins said.

When the family was stopped at a red light one recent Saturday, a Lighthouse member approached the car and showed his son one of the photographs, Collins said.

"He saw it up close, and he had nightmares about it," he said. "They have every right to say what they want to say, but at the same time, I think you have a responsibility to say it tactfully."

While describing the problem to the city council, Wirthman said that one group, whose name he did not know, had to cancel a fundraising event because of the protesters.

But Whitman said when the church knows of another group's fundraiser, such as a firefighter boot drive, the street ministry moves elsewhere.

Recently, one of the photos sparked a confrontation that might have become violent as the church picketed in Jefferson over Memorial Day weekend, Wirthman told the Jefferson City Council last week.

A man stopped his truck and got out, scolding the anti-abortion posters for their graphic photos, and snatched one of the photo placards from a church member's hands.

The two men exchanged sharp words, but the confrontation did not escalate to any kind of physical assault, both Whitman and Wirthman said.

But the next time, it might, Wirthman warned the council, which is scheduled to discuss adopting an ordinance at Monday's meeting, set for 6 p.m. in the Jefferson Civic Center.

Whitman said church members will resist any efforts to make them hide their graphic signs, just as they've ignored at least one threat from Jefferson police officers that the protesters could face arrest, he said. Overall, police have been "very professional," he said.

The signs are just telling a truth, Whitman said.

"It's not just the abortion. Obviously, we want the babies to be saved, but we want the mother to be saved from a lifetime of knowing she murdered her baby. That's our goal, to see people saved, but we obviously cannot see people saved unless they know what their sins are," he said.

Whitman quoted a Bible verse, Isaiah 58:1, which admonishes believers to "lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins."

And the photos make the transgression of abortion abundantly clear, he said.

"People get upset about us holding up the signs, and to me they ought to get upset about the fact that it's happening 4,200 times a day. The best way to stop abortion signs is to stop abortion," Whitman said.

Many cities, including Athens, have ordinances regulating street demonstrations and other "special events," and Wirthman showed the council one from the city of Gainesville that he thought could provide a model for a Jefferson ordinance.

Wirthman suggested that groups that stage public demonstrations should not only have to get a permit beforehand with the Jefferson Police Department, but should also have to pay for police security when the police chief deems a threat might exist, either to the public or demonstrators.

But the city will be on treacherous legal ground if it tries to make the church pay for security based on how people might react to them, or if the city tries to restrict the content of the signs the group uses, said Gerry Weber, legal director of the Georgia American Civil Liberties Union.

"I think the city has to be very careful in drafting an ordinance along these lines," Weber said. "There are a lot of pitfalls."

Governments can require a group to get a permit for a demonstration, but is allowed very little discretion to deny anyone a permit, he said.

And in a case involving Georgia's Forsyth County, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a city or county cannot charge a fee based on "the anticipated reaction of listeners," Weber said.

And finally, the city will find it "very difficult" to legally impose restrictions that would require the church group to tone down their signs, Weber said.

"Content-based restrictions are very difficult," he said.

• Staff Writer Allison Floyd contributed to this report.