WorldNetDaily: Judge drops all charges against Philly Christians

Specifically, Judge Pamela Dembe, sitting in County Common Pleas Court, has summarily dismissed all the charges against the adult members of the Philadelphia Five, who had been (wrongfully) arrested and charged with riot and other things that would have been very difficult to prove, after a confrontation with some homosexuals who, let it be known, themselves started the fight. The judge now says that the prosecution has adduced no evidence that could possibly sustain the charges, and that neither Federal nor State law allows their prosecution for nothing other than the words they uttered.

This is why, in America, a criminal case goes through more than one judge between arrest and conviction. Earlier, Judge William Austin Meehan had bound the four adults over for trial, saying that he had no grounds to throw the case out. But when it came before the would-be trial judge, she said, quite simply, that the prosecution had no case. (The other member of the Five is a teen-ager who is in the toils of the Juvenile Court system--but WorldNetDaily says that her case will likely be dismissed tomorrow.)

I do want to pick a minor quarrel with this one excerpt from Judge Dembe's opinion:

We are one of the very few countries that protects unpopular speech...And that means that Nazis can March in Skokie, Ill. ... That means that the Ku Klux Klan can march where they wish to. We cannot stifle speech because we don't want to hear it, or we don't want to hear it now.

True enough, Your Honor, but not, if it please the Court, entirely relevant. The Five never said anything other than the simple Truth--which Truth, by all reliable accounts, they offered in love, not in anger. It was the militant homosexuals who did all of the violence that took place. The adult members of the Five were in your Court, Your Honor, charged with starting a fight they didn't start. To say now that the laws of our country protects "unpopular" speech implies that the Court itself would rather not hear it--and that, I submit to the Court, is a crying shame.

Nor is this all. The prosecutors and the law-enforcement officers acted in the worst possible faith. They stood before Judge Meehan and actually said that the Bible was "fighting words" and that Christians were inherently "hateful." To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, those whose actions befit the security services of a totalitarian regime are manifestly unfit to serve as officers-of-the-peace in any city inhabited by free people. For that reason, this case is not over yet, in that the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy is suing the city in federal court for this disgraceful episode. As well they should. But don't just take my word for it; see for yourself. (Warning: you'll need Microsoft Windows Media Player, or, if you're using Linux, you'll need Movie Player and the appropriate plug-ins and codecs.)