As hard as it may be to believe, it's true.  Four Christians were arrested in Detroit this week for distributing copies of the Gospel outside of an Arab International Festival.  In addition to being arrested, the camera (with any video of what they were doing, as well as how event security and police reacted) was confiscated.

In many ways you expect to see this sort of thing in some third world countries. But this is America.  And now it's here.

(Via the Christian Examiner)

Arrested were Negeen Mayel, Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, Paul Rezkalla, and David Wood. Mayel, an eighteen-year-old female, whose parents emigrated from Afghanistan and a recent convert from Islam to Christianity, was also charged with failure to obey a police officer’s orders. ...

“These Christian missionaries were exercising their Constitutional rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion, but apparently the Constitution carries little weight in Dearborn, where the Muslim population seems to dominate the political apparatus,” said Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center.

Thompson stated that the Constitution does not allow police to ban the right of free speech just because there are those to disagree.

“It’s apparent that these arrests were a retaliatory action over the embarrassing video of the strong arm tactics used last year by Festival Security Guards,” Thompson said. “This time, the first thing police officers did before making the arrests was to confiscate the video cameras in order to prevent a recording of what was actually happening.”  ...

So it's come to this?

Have we really gone so far down the slippery slope in this country that you can be arrested for "disorderly conduct" for sharing the Gospel?  Or even just expressing religious views that someone else might disagree with?

As noted in the article above, the Thomas More Law Center is representing the group that was arrested in a case that (in a just world/country) will result in big victory for free speech and religious rights.  And, in our opinion, should involve an award of some big damages to the city.

While it's true we live in an overly litigious society, cases like this are a must to be fought out in court.  And, since it seems that the only thing anyone understands anymore are large financial judgments, the city should get slapped with a big one.  And hopefully learn a lesson - and serve as an example.

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