Even in America

“And when they had summoned them, they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard.’ And when they had threatened them further, they let them go (finding no basis on which they might punish them) on account of the people, because they were all glorifying God for what had happened; for the man was more than forty years old on whom this miracle of healing had been performed.” Acts 4:18-22

One News Now reports that a pro-life counselor and pastor will spend 30 days in prison for peacefully approaching women outside a California abortion clinic to share abortion alternatives.

A judge sentenced Walter Hoye, a pastor in Berkeley, for violating a local ordinance that bans protestors from coming within eight feet of anyone entering the clinic. According to Dana Cody of the Life Legal Defense Foundation, Hoye was also fined $1,130 and placed on probation for three years. “That meant Walter had to accept the terms of the probation which was stay away from the clinic - and Walter refused to accept that term because he doesn’t think his free-speech rights should be impinged for three years,” Cody said.

Hoye’s supporters argue that the ordinance is an unconstitutional violations of free speech.