Pro-lifers exiled to 'religious ghetto' at county fair

The Peter's Net ministry has been lauded in Catholic and mainstream media

While exhibitors hawking goods and services and vendors selling cotton candy are allowed to occupy prime real estate at the McHenry County Fair in Woodstock, Illinois, "faith-based" groups are apparently being forced to set up shop in no-man's land.

The Thomas More Society, based in Chicago, is now demanding the fair stop discriminating against religious and pro-life exhibitors or risk a lawsuit.

A letter from the non-profit legal firm details the fair's "deliberate and intentional isolation" of any organization deemed “faith-based.”

The law firm claims an organization associated with Planned Parenthood and espousing support for abortion was placed in the main exhibition area, while three faith-based groups with pro-life messages are being forced to erect booths in less desirable spots "because of their religious message."

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The 2015 booths for Peter’s Net, McHenry Deanery Respect Life, and 1st Way Pregnancy Support Services of Johnsburg have all been assigned spaces far away from the view of many fair attendees, contends the firm.

Read "Abortion Free: Your Manual to Building a Pro-Life America One Community at a Time" by Troy Newman and Cherylo Sullenger of Operation Rescue.

Volunteers at the Peter's Net booth use a variety of interactive means to accomplish their mission, including games for children, informational handouts, and a display presenting the Catholic Church’s pro-life message by means of fetal models depicting the stages of growth of an unborn child.

The firm claims the segregation is intentional, and references comments made by Larry Macherous, the fair's chief executive, who reportedly described three fetal-model displays as "three too many," and revealed his support of Planned Parenthood during a conversation with the president of Peter's Net.

McHenry Deanery Respect Life

"This comment coming from the fair’s principal executive shows that its exile and segregation of faith-based and pro-life groups into a remote 'religious ghetto' constitutes a grievous violation of the Civil Rights Act and the Illinois Human Rights Law. These statutes forbid denial, based on religion, of 'the full and equal enjoyment of the facilities, goods, and services' of the fair, which qualifies as a 'place of public accommodation' under federal and state civil rights law," said the law firm's letter.

Paula Emmerth, the president of Peter's Net, said Macherous told her he would never allow her pro-life group in the same building as the Planned Parenthood group due to the "conflict" between the organizations.

“The McHenry County Fair is marginalizing pro-life and religious exhibitors by relegating them to an out of the way location, depriving them of the much more desirable opportunity to exhibit with nonreligious commercial and informational booths, and essentially cutting off their access to fairgoers," explained Thomas Olp, senior attorney for Thomas More Society.

Olp claims the rationale for segregating the groups "seems contrived," and that there is "no comprehensible rationale" for isolating the pro-life and religious exhibitors.

"He claims that he wants to increase gradually the number of commercial vendors in the main buildings, but has left intact most of the other non-commercial informational exhibitors there, all of them non-religious," said Olp.

The McHenry County Fairgrounds is privately owned and funded by the McHenry County Fair Association, a nonprofit group that consists of 22 board members and more than one hundred members. The fair takes place each year during the first week of August.