Return to The New World
How Utah's House Bill 131 Segregates
Christians
and Defies the First Amendment
Friday, February 18, 2005
In Utah, where the marriage of church and state has not yet been divorced, the
state legislature wields its entrusted power to write laws benefiting one
church-the Mormon Church-to the exclusion of minority faiths. On February 8,
2005, the Utah House voted 11 to 1 (one negative, one absent) to drive House
Bill 131 into law banning Christian street preachers (a minority) from spreading
their message on public sidewalks near the Mormon Temple Square. This bill makes
it a class B misdemeanor and provides for civil suit should anyone intentionally
or knowingly pass "a leaflet or handbill" or display a sign within 100 feet of
the door of a "place of worship" and within eight feet of a person without their
consent. Among other things, oral communication without consent is also banned
in this sidewalk zone.
The twist to this bill came later. Republican Representative Douglas C. Aagard,
who submitted this bill, acknowledges the one-sided Mormon Church benefit. The
Associated Press reported that Aagard told Utah lawmakers, "the law would help
establish standards for street preachers outside [the Mormon] Temple Square."
This leak endorsed a specific religion without equal footing for the other. HB
131, in effect, becomes a state-supported "endorsement" for a religion (the
Mormon Church) while another religion is "prohibited" in their "free exercise"
(the Christian street preachers). Both prongs of the establishment and
restriction clauses found in the First Amendment stand against this bill:
"Congress (or Utah in this case) shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." That alone should kill
the bill.
In this sense the bill resembles Deep South Jim Crow laws that the civil rights
movement fought in the 1960s. The street preachers besieged by this bill are
American citizens and, as such, they were born with the inherent rights found in
the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Utah's mistake is thinking that they
somehow can revoke what they didn't grant-our rights. These rights are ours by
birth or by the oath of citizenship.
In the other 49 states and Washington D.C., sidewalks are unquestionably
protected as a public forum for First Amendment purposes, so why not throughout
Utah? Utah's Legislature cannot rob free speech from its public forum without
stifling the Constitution. Most amazing, if one searches Salt Lake City
newspapers, it is the Mormons who have been arrested for assaulting the street
preachers, and not the reverse. No record shows that the street preachers struck
back. Why, then, is this bill written against the street preachers when they are
the victims of assault?
The legislature intents to fix a Temple Square problem with a statewide law. The
troubling consequences of HB 131 are multi-faceted. Every American citizen who
visits Utah and hands out a leaflet at Temple Square or anywhere in the state is
stonewalled through Utah HB 131. If this becomes law, what our nation has freely
practiced since 1776 will no longer be the case in Utah. Who can tell how many
millions of tracts non-Mormons visiting the area have distributed at Temple
Square over the past 150 years? The bill has a long-arm reach over all
Americans, which is outrageous and should incense every freedom lover.
Political campaigners should be equally upset since this bill does not exempt
their street leaflets. Campaigners are subject to a misdemeanor charge and
lawsuit should they, without prior consent, hand a flyer to the wrong person
heading to worship. What does that do for Democrats in a Republican majority
state like Utah? A radical John Bircher Mormon (from late President Benson
downward), who hates Democrats, for example, can bully a leafleting campaigner
by claiming he was Temple bound when leafleted. Doesn't that shoot democracy in
the foot?
Another part of the bill simply begs for a federal lawsuit. The bill defines a
"place of worship" as "a church, temple, synagogue, mosque, or other building
set apart primarily for the purpose of worship in which religious services are
held." Under this definition, the Methodist Wesley brothers or Baptist
revivalists, who preached in open fields or who hold tent meetings have no
protection. Their place of worship is a field or tent, as was Israel's for 400
years. Can a Mormon missionary be sued for passing a church-leaflet to a
Buddhist who intrudes upon his "place of worship," i.e., earth's open space
where he can sit under a Bodhi tree-a place with a 2,600-year history? The Utah
courts can then have the joy of figuring out whether the outdoor "place of
worship" for a Hindu, Buddhist, nature lover, Native American, or even an
outdoor group of Christians (similar to Jesus and the twelve) is equal to the
Mormon granite buildings in Salt Lake City.
Before Aagard championed his protection of the Mormon Church against Christian
street preachers, he drew a false analogy with a Colorado law that passed
Supreme Court scrutiny. It does not take a politician or attorney to see
Aagard's flawed logic and the bi-polar distinction between Hill v. Colorado and
Utah HB 131. Hill centered upon violent actions by demonstrators, who allegedly
"physically blocked entrances, pushed, shoved, grabbed, kicked, punched and bit
patients and escorts."[i] In Utah, rather than the street preachers acting in
this manner, it has been the Mormons arrested for assault. Aagard's analogy with
Hill simply fails. He has victimized the victims and rewarded the perpetrators.
The bill has drawn strange allies. Eric McHenry, an official representative of
Rev. Greg Johnson's "Standing Together Ministries" was quoted in a Brigham Young
University news article about this bill wherein he renounced the street
preachers.[ii] With Standing Together entering the debate, we have Christians
supporting a bill to arrest, jail, and sue other Christians who evangelize
differently. How is this bill not a resurrection of segregation and Jim Crow
laws from the South? Blacks had to use the alley instead of the public sidewalk
while Whites have full entrance on Main Street. In Utah, the Christian street
preachers are restricted on the public sidewalks in their contact with the
"white, and delightsome"[iii] Mormons heading to their "house of worship." How
Standing Together can place a kiss of death on fellow Christians and the First
Amendment by supporting such unbiblical and un-American sentiments is
unimaginable.
I am not a street preacher, but I fully support their rights to preach freely on
American streets. I have been active as a Christian minister in heralding civil
rights in both Utah and California, speaking on the shared platform with Martin
Luther King, III, and other civil rights leaders. To stay silent in the face of
a bill like HB 131 is a slap in the face of all Christians whether Black, White,
Catholic, Protestant, or Evangelical. It is offensive that the Mormon Church and
Standing Together Ministries supporting the segregation of Christian street
preachers from fellow Americans. HB 131 is entirely unnecessary, since
sufficient Utah laws already prohibiting public nuisance, assault, and other
scenarios without this bill. If this bill becomes law, then it isn't only street
preachers who have lost their rights, but all Americans.
Serving Jesus,
Kurt Van Gorden, Director
Utah Gospel Mission
The Utah Gospel Mission began in 1898 as a resolution of the Salt Lake City
Ministerial Association with the unashamed commission that Mormons in the West
need to hear the true and genuine gospel of Jesus Christ. The Utah Gospel
Mission has had mission workers active in Utah all but sixteen years since 1898
and its workers come from a wide variety of born again, mainline and evangelical
Christian denominations.
www.utahgospelmission.org
missioneditor@hotmail.com
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[i]
http://www.ago.state.co.us/PRESREL/presrl00/prsrl46.stm
[ii]
http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/54288
[iii] Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 30:6.
Copyright © Eastern Regional Watch Inc. 2003. All Rights Reserved.