{"id":83306,"date":"2015-12-23T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=83306"},"modified":"2015-12-23T10:47:17","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T15:47:17","slug":"police-try-stop-pro-life-christmas-carols-outside-abortion-clinic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/police-try-stop-pro-life-christmas-carols-outside-abortion-clinic\/","title":{"rendered":"Police try to stop pro-life Christmas carols outside abortion clinic"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>On Saturday, a pair of Falls Church, Virginia, police officers <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adfmedia.org\/News\/PRDetail\/9823\">attempted to silence<\/a> pro-life activists caroling on public property outside of an abortion clinic, but a letter from the pro-life law firm Alliance Defending Freedom <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adfmedia.org\/News\/PRDetail\/9826\">quickly defused the situation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In an incident captured on video, two officers approached a group singing \u201cSilent Night\u201d outside of the abortion facility, and told them they were violating a noise ordinance against \u201csing[ing] on any public street or private property in the city at anytime, so as to cause a noise disturbance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>[youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZpWEa85iZbc&amp;w=560&amp;h=315]<\/p>\n<p>They stopped singing so as to avoid citations punishable by up to a $2,500 fine, or a year in prison, but contacted ADF about the incident. ADF subsequently sent a letter to the police department, explaining the pro-lifers\u2019 free speech rights.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo city ordinance can trump the First Amendment. It\u2019s preposterous to think that any noise ordinance can or should be used to stop the singing of Christmas carols on a public sidewalk,\u201d ADF Senior Counsel Matt Bowman explained.<\/p>\n<p>The letter further explained that \u201cChristmas carols are obviously not a \u2018noise disturbance\u2019 to \u2018a reasonable person of normal sensitivities\u2019 as set forth in the ordinance,\u201d which defines disturbances as \u201cany sound which: (1) Endangers or injures the safety or health of humans or animals; (2) Annoys or disturbs a reasonable person of normal sensitivities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, the city of Falls Church backed down and confirmed that residents were free to sing Christmas carols on public property outside of abortion clinics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re pleased that that city has changed its tune and says it won\u2019t do that again,\u201d Bowman responded. \u201cWe will continue to monitor the situation to ensure that the carolers will be able to exercise their constitutionally protected freedom to sing tomorrow as planned.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Saturday, a pair of Falls Church, Virginia, police officers attempted to silence pro-life activists caroling on public property outside of an abortion clinic, but a letter from the pro-life law firm Alliance Defending Freedom quickly defused the situation. In an incident captured on video, two officers approached a group singing \u201cSilent Night\u201d outside of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":83307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[3473],"tags":[19,5037,2978,2508,6703,6802,909,2114,4601,6275,385],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Police try to stop pro-life Christmas carols outside abortion clinic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In an incident captured on video, two officers approached the group outside of the abortion facility and told them they were violating a noise ordinance.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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