June 24, 2002
U.S. Supreme Court reaffirms right to proselytize door to door
___By Robert Marus
___ABP Washington Bureau
___WASHINGTON (ABP)--Door-to-door proselytizing is protected by the Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a landmark First Amendment case June 17.
___In an 8-1 decision, the high court ruled that communities may not require religious groups to obtain a permit before witnessing door to door.
___The justices sided with Jehovah's Witnesses, who challenged an ordinance in a small Ohio town that required canvassers to register with the city, obtain a permit before engaging in door-to-door solicitation and produce the permit if asked.
___Leaders of the village of Stratton, Ohio, said the ordinance was needed to protect elderly residents against harassment by solicitors and fraud by con artists going door to door.
___The town's Jehovah's Witnesses refused to apply for a permit, however, saying it was tantamount to forcing them to get permission from the government before preaching to their neighbors.
___"It is offensive--not only to the values protected by the First Amendment, but to the very notion of a free society--that in the context of everyday public discourse a citizen must first inform the government of her desire to speak to her neighbors and then obtain a permit to do so," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his opinion for the majority.
___The Supreme Court previously had ruled that people may remain anonymous in spreading non-commercial political messages, in order to protect supporters of unpopular views from retaliation. The new ruling extends the same protection to religious speech.
___Jehovah's Witnesses' religion requires them to engage in door-to-door evangelism regularly. Individual Jehovah's Witnesses and Witnesses groups have been the plaintiffs in several historic cases that have established Supreme Court case law with regard to protecting freedom of door-to-door speech.
___Stratton's Witnesses filed suit against the 287-population town with the aid of lawyers from the denomination's publishing house, claiming the ordinance violated their rights to free exercise of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
___The court's two most conservative justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, joined with the majority in the case, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society vs. Village of Stratton, Ohio, but rejected at least part of the majority's reasoning.
___Scalia and Thomas particularly disagreed with the majority's notion that some people would have religious or patriotic objections to registering with a government official for any purpose. "If our free-speech jurisprudence is to be determined by the predicted behavior of such crackpots, we are in a sorry state indeed," Scalia wrote.
___The lone dissenter to the decision, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, said he believed Stratton's registration law served the state's interest in preventing crime. Burglars or other criminals will pose as canvassers in order to "case" neighborhoods and homes, he said. He referred specifically to a recent case in New Hampshire where two Dartmouth College professors were murdered in their home by teenagers posing as students conducting a door-to-door survey.
___The majority opinion argued the Stratton ordinance likely would not deter such criminals anyway.
___The ruling leaves standing portions of the law that limit commercial solicitation. The case now goes back to the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for analysis on how to fashion an ordinance for the town that does not hinder anonymous political or religious speech.
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