{"id":264318,"date":"2022-03-15T10:37:39","date_gmt":"2022-03-15T15:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=264318"},"modified":"2022-03-14T16:26:04","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T21:26:04","slug":"judge-pro-life-sidewalk-counselor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/judge-pro-life-sidewalk-counselor\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge rules pro-life sidewalk counselor’s lawsuit against city of Charlotte can proceed"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

A federal judge has ruled that a pro-life sidewalk counselor arrested outside a Charlotte, North Carolina, abortion business in 2020 can proceed with a lawsuit against the city.<\/p>\n

As Live Action News previously\u00a0reported<\/a>, David Benham was arrested on April 4, 2020, outside of A Preferred Women\u2019s Health Center. Benham was attempting to counsel abortion-minded women as they entered the facility, but he and other pro-life activists were arrested for violating the state’s COVID-19 stay-at-home order at the time.<\/p>\n

According to WNG.org<\/a>, Benham’s pro-life group had received confirmation from\u00a0Maj. Andrew Kornberg of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department that their activities were in compliance with the current COVID-19 mandates. The sidewalk counselor group was social distancing and they allege that they had just a few members outside the facility at the time. Despite this, Benham and others were arrested outside the abortion facility for violating orders that prohibited gatherings of 10 or more people. Benham and four other pro-life activists\u00a0sued the city<\/a> on April 18, 2020, claiming that their rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion were violated.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0VICTORY: Planned Parenthood drops plans for new California facility after pro-life pushback<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The city dropped the charges against the pro-life sidewalk counselors in 2021, but the pro-life activists chose to continue their lawsuit.\u00a0“The dropping of the charges actually underscores why this amended complaint should prevail,” Denise Harle, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), told<\/a> The Christian Post at the time. “What we’ve added in this amended complaint is Fourth Amendment claims, based on the unlawful stop, unlawful detention, and unlawful arrests, the fact that the city and the county dropped the charges against David Benham shows that those arrests were improper.”<\/p>\n

In his ruling last week, U.S. District Judge Graham Mullen dismissed Benham’s free speech complaint on the grounds that the stay-at-home order did not violate his speech. However, he allowed Benham’s complaint that the order violated the freedom of religion to proceed. Mullen compared the activity with that of shopping, which was allowed throughout the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause shopping indoors is likely to present greater risk for spreading COVID-19 than socially distanced sidewalk advocacy, strict scrutiny must apply here,” he wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ADF’s\u00a0Kevin Theriot is currently representing Benham.\u00a0\u201cThey used this crisis as an excuse to crack down on speech they don\u2019t like,\u201d Theriot said. According to WNG.org, Theriot says the case will now continue to trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge has ruled that a pro-life sidewalk counselor arrested outside a Charlotte, North Carolina, abortion business in 2020 can proceed with a lawsuit against the city. As Live Action News previously\u00a0reported, David Benham was arrested on April 4, 2020, outside of A Preferred Women\u2019s Health Center. Benham was attempting to counsel abortion-minded women […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":264350,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[2793,3473],"tags":[8594,2978,16310,909,8648,10449,1001],"yoast_head":"\nJudge rules pro-life sidewalk counselor's lawsuit against city of Charlotte can proceed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A federal judge has ruled that a pro-life sidewalk counselor arrested outside an abortion business in 2020 can proceed with a lawsuit against the city.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/judge-pro-life-sidewalk-counselor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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