The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) did not stop at getting charges dismissed against a Georgia man for distributing religious literature in public. It's now challenging the constitutionality of the Cumming, Ga., ordinance under which the man was prosecuted.
Fredric Baumann spent two days in jail after passing out Christian literature on a public sidewalk last April without obtaining a permit for parades and demonstrations. A Georgia Superior Court judge dismissed the charges at the request of ADF, which also has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court.
“We are filing a civil lawsuit to have the city’s unconstitutional ordinance struck from the books so this doesn’t happen again to Mr. Baumann or anyone else,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman.
Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, told CitizenLink that Baumann deserves significant compensation for the city's “outrageous” treatment.
“Leafleting on a public sidewalk is a venerable American practice, as old as the nation's colonial resistance to British tyranny leading to the Revolution,” Hausknecht said. “To witness a city official anywhere in this day and age arresting a Christian for passing out religious tracts on a public sidewalk should bring chills to the spine of any citizen who values the principles on which this country was founded.”
