{"id":13568,"date":"2025-12-24T09:52:27","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T09:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=13568"},"modified":"2025-12-24T09:52:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T09:52:27","slug":"police-threaten-arrest-over-christmastime-evangelism-first-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=13568","title":{"rendered":"Police Threaten Arrest Over Christmastime Evangelism: First Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Reading Time:<\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Arizona city officials allegedly threatened a resident with arrest after he and a group of friends attempted to share their Christian beliefs during a Christmas festival, which the First Liberty Institute says infringed on the man\u2019s right to religious expression.\n<\/p>\n

Have you taken your place on the wall?<\/h4>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

First Liberty Institute, a legal organization dedicated to defending religious freedom, sent a\u00a0letter\u00a0last week to the City of Tucson, accusing officials of restricting resident David Hoffman\u2019s religious speech at the annual Winterhaven Festival of Lights. In the letter, the organization threatened legal action if it did not receive a response by Friday.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe City of Tucson is unlawfully suppressing Mr. Hoffman\u2019s speech by removing his religious expression from public property and separating his speech from fellow attendees by placing a barricade between them,\u201d Nate Kellum, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, said in a\u00a0statement\u00a0provided to The Christian Post.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city isolates religious speech for censorship. It\u2019s unconstitutional. Like any other kind of speech, religious speech is protected under the First Amendment,\u201d Kellum added.\n<\/p>\n

The City of Tucson and the city\u2019s attorney did not immediately respond to The Christian Post\u2019s request for comment.\n<\/p>\n

On Dec. 13, Hoffman and his friends visited the Winterhaven neighborhood during the festival, which runs from Dec. 13 through Dec. 27. As the letter noted, the event is free and open to the public, and Hoffman\u2019s group wanted to attend and share their Christian faith with attendees.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe festival of lights is an annual holiday event occurring on the public streets, sidewalks, and rights-of-way of the historic Winterhaven neighborhood in Tucson, Arizona,\u201d the document said about the event.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cEach year, the general public is invited to walk through the public ways that wind through the neighborhood to take in and enjoy light displays, food and drink supplied by local vendors.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Hoffman and his friends were not selling items or asking for donations, nor did they obstruct the public walkway, according to First Liberty Institute\u2019s letter.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYet, after conducting this religious activity for a short while, City police officers approached Hoffman\u2019s group and warned them to halt their expression, citing the festival\u2019s solicitation policy as basis,\u201d the document stated. \u201cThis solicitation policy, enforced by the City, prohibits all \u2018political, religious, or commercial materials or messaging.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The police officers reportedly told Hoffman\u2019s group that their religious messaging was relegated to a small space outside of the festival footprint, a free speech zone titled \u201cDesignated Space for Peaceful Messaging and Literature Distribution.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Officers also threatened Hoffman with arrest and a trespass charge if he failed to comply, according to the letter.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cFearing arrest, Hoffman and his group forsook their speech inside the festival. But they wish to resume sharing their faith for the remainder of this year\u2019s festival, and all future Winterhaven Festivals,\u201d First Liberty Institute explained in its letter to city officials. \u201cThrough counsel and this letter, they hope to resolve this conflict without resorting to litigation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The legal organization argued that Hoffman\u2019s \u201cevangelistic speech, literature distribution and oral expression\u201d are protected under the First Amendment, and that the presence of a festival doesn\u2019t alter the streets\u2019 status as \u201ctraditional public fora.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Furthermore, First Liberty Institute claimed that the city\u2019s treatment of Hoffman violated his rights under\u00a0Arizona\u2019s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The act prohibits government entities from \u201csubstantially burden[ing] a person\u2019s exercise of religion,\u201d unless an agency demonstrates a compelling governmental interest and uses \u201cthe least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

To resolve the situation, the legal group requested that the City of Tucson provide Hoffman with written assurance that it will no longer \u201cbanish religious speech to a speech zone within the City\u2019s public rights-of-way\u201d during the remainder of the Winterhaven Festival, as well as any future festivals.\n<\/p>\n

What do you think of this case? Share your thoughts and prayers below.<\/h4>\n

This article was originally published at The Christian Post. Photo Credit: DNY59\/Getty Images.<\/em>
\n \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: 3 minutes Arizona city officials allegedly threatened a resident with arrest after he and a group of friends attempted to share their Christian beliefs during a Christmas festival, which the First Liberty Institute says infringed on the man\u2019s right to religious expression. Have you taken your place on the wall? \u00a0 First Liberty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[2480,3937,149,3247,1797,3936],"class_list":["post-13568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-prayer","tag-arrest","tag-christmastime","tag-evangelism","tag-liberty","tag-police","tag-threaten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}