The
pro-life group Missionaries to the Preborn were
back in Findlay Friday, spreading their message
with four-foot-tall photographs of aborted fetuses
at the intersection of Tiffin Avenue and Bright
Road.
The
group had tried to display the signs at the intersection
on July 31, but were forced to leave by local
law enforcement officers. The group then filed
a lawsuit against the city in U.S. Northern District
Court in Toledo, claiming their first and 14th
amendment rights (the right to free speech and
the right to due process and equal protection
under the law) were violated because they were
told they needed a permit to demonstrate and said
they were then given the runaround when they asked
how to obtain a permit.
City
officials say they were opposed to the group's
demonstration because they were creating safety
problems with their photographs and running out
into traffic, not because of the content of their
message.
The
Milwaukee-based group filed for a restraining
order against the city on Aug. 3 in order to be
allowed to demonstrate again. City officials then
relented and agreed to allow them to demonstrate
at the intersection, but the group has not yet
dropped its lawsuit.
"I'm
going to speak to the lawyer next week,"
group leader Pastor Matt Trewhella said Friday.
City
leaders later said last week the group did not
need a permit and in fact called into question
whether or not the group was ever even told that.
However, everything went off Friday without a
major problem for either the city or the group.
"They
definitely did it the way it was supposed to be
done so there were no problems," Mayor Tony
Iriti said Friday afternoon.
Hancock
County Sheriff's deputies went out and asked the
group to move a trailer they had parked on Westgate
Drive, which the group did.
The
Findlay Police Department got about 30 calls and
the mayor's office got around another 15 calls
complaining about the graphic nature of the pictures
the group was displaying.
"I
have no problem with their cause, but the way
they're going about it, it's disgusting,"
said Scott Andru, who owns Andru's Fine Diamonds,
one of the businesses the group was demonstrating
in front of. "Anybody can believe in whatever
they want to believe in, that's totally fine,
but to protest on the No. 1 street in Findlay?
I mean, I've seen I don't know how many near-accidents
out here."
Andru
said he called Iriti to offer his support after
the Aug. 3 article in the Courier about the group's
lawsuit.
"I
mean, Findlay is a good town," Andru said.
"It's a good, safe town. The last thing we
need is a bunch of pictures of this making the
Toledo news or, you know, it's going to be all
over the place."
Heidi
Barilla, who works at a neighboring business,
also said she felt the group had a right to spread
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their
message but did take issue with the signs of decapitated
and mutilated fetuses.
"How
do you explain that to a child?" Barilla
said.
Trewhella
said the pictures are necessary to portray the
violent nature of abortion.
"We've
never found a pretty picture of an abortion yet,"
he said. He
claims abortions have declined by 50 percent in
Wisconsin since his group took to the streets
with their message. He said he is sensitive to
people's concerns when it comes to children, but
he feels it is necessary for them to see the pictures,
too.
"Some
people think it's wrong because of children being
out in public," Trewhella said. "One
of the things we point out in (the group's pamphlets)
is, at the end of World War II our American GIs
took the men, the women and the children (in Germany)
and marched them past the remains of those who
died in the death camps — the actual remains
... The reason they took the men and women in
was they said you were all partly responsible
for having tolerated this. The reason they took
the children in, they said it was because they
don't want the next generation to do what that
generation had done.
"We
don't go out of our way to show children (the
pictures), but yeah children do end up seeing
it," he continued. "My children have
seen it. I actually have 11 children. All of them,
(at) around age 3. They all said the same thing,
'What happened to the baby,' when they saw the
pictures. I just explain to them that our government
allows bad men to do this to the babies. It's
always part of our prayers after that, our family
prayers. We pray that the babies stop being killed."
Trewhella
said his group received mostly positive feedback
from motorists.
"We've
had a few people pull over and thank us,"
Trewhella said. "We don't solicit donations
but we've gotten a few."
Missionaries
to the Preborn have traveled to more than 450
locations around the country spreading its pro-life
message. Members recently have been touring Ohio
and have conducted similar demonstrations in Defiance,
Toledo, Lima, Springfield, Kettering, Dayton and
Cincinnati.
While
the group's Web site — www.missionariestopreborn.com
— does tout the fact that demonstrators
who face criminal charges intend to "respectfully
plead their cause before the courts," Trewhella
said they do not purposefully go out seeking lawsuits.
"Absolutely
not," he said. "When we're done with
this tour, we will have done this in over 500
cities and towns in 34 different states now, and
during all that time we've only brought three
lawsuits in all those cities. In the other two
cities we were arrested, they arrested 50 to 60
of us right off the streets and took all of our
photographs."
Contact
staff writer John Graber at:
(419) 427-8417
johngraber@thecourier.com |
