Stunning outcome to anti-Christ case against U.S. pastor who just wanted a Bible study in public

There’s been victory for a pastor in a Massachusetts town where officials first denied him the use of public rooms in a library and then ordered a newspaper to shut down his advertisement for an open-air Bible study in a public park.

It is the American Center for Law and Justice that confirmed the win for its client, a pastor whose identity was not released immediately.

“Our client requested the use of the community meeting room in his town’s library. He wanted to host Bible studies and grief support meetings for his church. Initially, the library welcomed his requests; but later, the library director sent an email claiming that, according to ‘the Town Administration and Legal Counsel,’ the meeting rooms of the library could only ‘be used for occasional events but not for recurring events like bi-monthly Bible studies,'” the ACLJ reported.

“In the meantime, the pastor also tried to meet for a Bible study in the open area of a public park. He published an ad in his local newspaper regarding the Bible study, but town officials reacted by maliciously demanding that the newspaper pull the ad, claiming that ‘proper approval’ had not been obtained,” it said.

The attacks were unconstitutional, the legal team explained, so it intervened with a letter to the town and its officials.

The ACLJ “sent a demand letter stating that our client should be immediately permitted to use meeting rooms under the same terms and conditions that apply to anyone else. We also demanded that the pastor and his church no longer be excluded from public parks because of their religious activity and that the town immediately cease threatening the newspaper for sharing information about a constitutionally protected event.”

Negotiations with town officials produced several results, including a letter to the paper admitting that the publication is a private entity and can publish what it chooses, not only what town officials want. And they admitted people are free to use public parks and open spaces.

“Second, the town entered into an agreement allowing our client to use the library’s meeting room regularly. The pastor can use the room twice a month to hold meetings according to the generally applicable rules for the room. Anti-Christian local bureaucrats will no longer impede the church’s ministry,” the ACLJ reported.

The fight arose when the ACLJ found the town’s actions “flying in the face of decades-old Supreme Court precedents. The library violated the First Amendment by prohibiting our client from regularly using the library meeting room, even though the library policy expressly allows people to do so.”

The ACLJ pointed out it fought the Lamb’s Chapel case to the U.S. Supreme Court more than 30 years ago over similar issues.

“In Lamb’s Chapel, the U.S. Supreme Court explained that the ‘government violates the First Amendment when it denies access to a speaker solely to suppress the point of view he espouses on an otherwise includible subject.’ The Court ruled in our favor and held that a public school’s decision to exclude a church from using its meeting spaces to show a Christian film certainly violates the First Amendment.”

The legal team said the park fight is the same issue, as the Supreme Court has said “streets and parks, which have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions. . . . In these quintessential public forums, the government may not prohibit all communicative activity.”