 |
Preacher
Appeals To Supreme Court
To Erect
Homophobic Billboard
by
365Gay.com from the Web, February 11, 2007
|
| |
|
New York City, Feb.9 -- A
conservative pastor who is battling the Borough of Staten Island for ordering
the removal of a billboard containing a Biblical condemnation of homosexuality
has filed a petition with the US Supreme Court.
State and federal courts already have dismissed lawsuits brought by the Rev.
Kristopher Okwedy, founder of Keyword Ministries.
Okwedy says the billboard message is protected under his constitutional right to
practice his religion. He is being represented by a lawyer furnished by
the American Family Association.
In 2003 New York billboard company PNE removed the sign bought by Okwedy after
then-Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari wrote a letter of protest to
the company.
Okwedy paid PNE Media about $2,500 to design billboard signs that quoted a
passage from Leviticus: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind.
It is abomination."
In his letter to PNE's president Molinari, a Republican, said "I want to inform
you that this message conveys an atmosphere of intolerance which is not welcome
in our borough." He went on to remind the company made a lot of money from
billboard signs in Staten Island.
Okinedy sued PNE for breach of contract but Federal Judge Nina Gershon dismissed
the suit.
Okwedy went to the Court Appeals Court which ordered the case revisited.
The court ruled that "Molinari's letter could be found to contain an implicit
threat of retaliation if PNE failed to accede to his requests."
In November 2005 Gershon again dismissed the suit and Okwedy appealed to the
Second Circuit Court of Appeals which appointed a three judge panel to examine
the case. But the Second Circuit also dismissed the case.
"The City of New York has, in effect, said that certain religious beliefs that
hold homosexuality as sinful are not tolerable by the city," Okwedy's AFA
lawyer, Stephen M. Crampton, told the Staten Island Advance.
"We believe they have shown hostility toward religion in a very graphic way."
The City Law Department opposes Okwedy's application to the Supreme Court.
"The (U.S.) Court of Appeals (for the Second Circuit) ruled correctly when it
upheld the dismissal of the case," city attorney Alan Krams told the Advance.
"There is no issue of constitutional law meriting review by the Supreme Court.
The city's anti-discrimination policies are not unconstitutional because they
might offend the religious beliefs of some individuals."
The court has not indicated if it will hear the case.
|
