The Rutherford Institute has won a court victory for a West Virginia minority political party.
Members of the Constitution Party traveled to a popular state park to gather signatures to get their candidates on the 2008 election ballot. Rutherford Institute attorney Doug McKusick tells OneNewsNow their clients were approached by a park ranger who ordered them to stop, citing park solicitation rules. "They asserted that they had a First Amendment right to do what they were doing, and the ranger called the supervisor of the park, and he came by and he asserted that they had to stop circulating these petitions and obtaining signatures because it violated a rule of the department," he notes. The Rutherford Institute filed suit and won the decision. The court ruled the park's statute unconstitutional. "It gave basically unrestrained discretion to park officers to determine who could engage in expressive activity in the park and who would not be allowed to do that," McKusick adds. Secondly, the court found the regulation to be an unreasonable restriction of political speech in a setting where such speech is normally granted greatest protection.
If you believe OneNewsNow.com is an important source for Christian news, please consider a small tax-deductible gift for this service.
