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AFA JournalPro-life issuesPro-life forces victorious in Wisconsin legal battleAFA Journal, March 2002 edition Six pro-life activists in Monroe, Wisconsin, celebrated a major victory in January as that city settled a case by dismissing more than 14 outstanding charges against them. The activists, who were represented in the case by the AFA Center for Law & Policy (CLP), had been charged by the city with violating its sign ordinance and handbill law. Ralph Ovadal, pastor of Christ the King Church in Monroe and one of the pro-lifers prosecuted by the city, charged that the laws were unconstitutional. The ordinances prohibited the placing of leaflets on car windows that were parked in public and forbade the carrying of protest signs that were larger than three feet square. The city enforced the laws when Ovadal and others expressed their views about abortion, especially in front of the Planned Parenthood office in downtown Monroe. Planned Parenthood, with offices scattered across the nation, is the largest provider of abortion services in the world. According to CLP Chief Counsel Stephen M. Crampton, the Monroe laws seemed intent on focusing especially on pro-life activists. “The sole purpose for this ordinance was to stop Pastor Ovadal and his small band of pro-lifers from speaking out against abortion,” he said. Depositions and the city’s history of enforcing the law demonstrated a bias built into the sign ordinance. Monroe’s Chief of Police, Fred Kelley, said that “it seemed as though we were singling out Ovadal and his group.” Even the city’s counsel admitted that the sign ordinance appeared “to have been written with Christ the King Church abortion protests in mind.” The city was forced by the settlement agreement to dismiss all outstanding charges, scrap the challenged ordinances, and agree to pay each of the twelve pro-life plaintiffs reparations. Monroe officials also agreed to issue a statement pledging their desire “to enact and enforce all ordinances in a fair and evenhanded manner” in the future. “Pastor Ovadal and his flock stood up to the city’s unjust laws,” said CLP Litigation Counsel Bryan J. Brown, “not only by challenging them, but also by forcing the city to consider the outcome of evenly applying the laws to merchants and other nonprotestors.” |
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