Witch City judge: Preaching is 'disorderly conduct'

A judge in Salem, Mass., which calls itself "Witch City," has found a street preacher guilty of disorderly conduct for preaching the Gospel on Halloween night 2007.

Ben DuPre, an attorney with former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore's Foundation for Moral Law, represented Michael Marcavage and told WND an appeal will be filed.

"We're surprised and disappointed," he said today after the brief trial and court verdict. "Basically, because the crowd was so big and boisterous he sided with the cops [who grabbed a megaphone from Marcavage and arrested him.]"

"He suppressed Michael's ability to preach the Gospel. We're confident on appeal cooler heads will prevail," he said.

He previously told WND the city of Salem should not be arresting people based on the content of their message.

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"The police should have been protecting Mr. Marcavage's right to speak instead of targeting him for the Christian content of his speech. Preaching the Gospel is not disorderly conduct, even on Halloween night," he said.

Moore's organization, a religious-liberties legal group, is defending Marcavage because prosecutors insist his calm delivery of a biblical warning against sin was considered disorderly conduct, even though the boisterous behavior of others at the same time was not halted.

Marcavage's exact behavior was captured on video, which is available on this YouTube link:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marcavage earlier had been charged with using an amplified megaphone to deliver the message of love and hope, but that charge was dropped after lawyers documented his arrest at 8:30 p.m. and pointed out Salem laws allow such amplification until 10 p.m.

"Halloween night in Salem is like Mardi Gras in New Orleans," DuPre told WND. "It's a big sin-fest. That's, of course, why Michael went there. He feels called to deliver the message of the Gospel."

The city boasts on its own website: "Of course, Salem has become known as The Witch City! The Salem Witch Museum , the Witch Dungeon Museum and The Witch History Museum take you back in history to 1692, yet, present-day popularization of the witchcraft hysteria doesn't reveal anything about the large number of modern Witches living in Salem today."

DuPre said the exhortations to turn from sin may not have been welcomed by the festival attendees, but such speech is just what the First Amendment is supposed to protect.

The officers arrested him by grabbing his megaphone and throwing him to the ground, the video reveals.

Marcavage, whose Repent America website calls for sinners to turn from their ways and follow God, describes his work as evangelizing and "zealously labor[ing] to further the Kingdom of God."

He was one of the original Philadelphia 11 team whose members preached the Gospel at a homosexual festival and were arrested, only to be cleared later.

He also is challenging speech restrictions imposed by the National Park Service at the Liberty Bell Center in Philadelphia, which houses the Liberty Bell, the artifact from American history that rang to announce the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence and is inscribed with "Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the inhabitants thereof," a biblical quotation from Leviticus 25:10.

WND also reported just a week ago on an appeal planned on behalf of a team of four Christians convicted of disorderly conduct for praying at a "gay" festival in Elmira, N.Y.

Joel Oster of the Alliance Defense Fund said an appeal will be filed in Chemung County court for Julian and Gloria Raven, Maurice Kienenberger and Walter Quick, all of Elmira, who were ordered to pay $95 apiece in court costs in addition to the $100 fines.

"Choosing to exercise your First Amendment rights in a public place is not a crime," Oster said just before going into the trial.

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