August was a busy month. Here are the highlights:
* On August 1, we filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Toledo in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two pro-lifers who were arrested and threatened with arrest by Toledo police officers for engaging in First Amendment activity on the public sidewalk outside of a local abortion center.
* Also on August 1, we filed our notice of appeal in our lawsuit seeking to stop the construction of a mega-mosque in a Chaldean Christian neighborhood in Sterling Heights, Michigan. In this case, we are challenging the approval of a consent judgment entered into between the City and the American Islamic Community Center (AICC) which permits AICC to build this mosque in violation of state and local zoning regulations. The judge who denied our claim was also the same judge who approved the consent judgment we are challenging. We are appealing his ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
* On August 10, we filed a reply brief in the Oakland County Circuit Court in support of our appeal on behalf of five pro-lifers who were convicted of trespassing and interfering with police authority arising out of a Red Rose Rescue at an abortion center in West Bloomfield, Michigan. The rescue successfully stopped 11 scheduled abortions.
* On August 17, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a ruling in our favor in an important First Amendment case after the Washington, D.C. transit authority refused to run a pro-free speech ad depicting the winning entry of a draw Mohammad contest. The appellate court reversed an adverse ruling by the court below, notwithstanding the fact that the court’s opinion was dripping with hostility toward our clients and us. Nonetheless the court had to ultimately (and it did so reluctantly) yield to our arguments. However, rather than simply rule in our favor, the court sent the case back down to the district court (remanded) to rule on the question of “reasonableness” in light of a recent Supreme Court case—the circuit court could have done so on its own in light of the precedent it cited, but it didn’t. We will be seeking further review.
* Also on August 17, we filed a “supplemental authority” notice in a case that has been pending a decision from the court for nearly five years. In this case, a Detroit transit authority rejected our clients’ ad because transit officials claimed it was “political.” Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Minnesota statute banning voters from wearing “political” apparel at a polling place, a nonpublic forum, because the term “political” did not provide an objective, workable standard for restricting speech. As we set forth in our filing, the same is true in our case.
* On August 22, AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel David Yerushalmi began work on the pretrial filings necessary to try a fraud case against the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the District of Columbia federal district court. In that case, AFLC will present expert testimony demonstrating that CAIR is a Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood front group and not a legitimate civil liberties organization.
* On August 22, AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel Robert Muise argued an appeal on behalf of the five Red Rose Rescuers before a judge of the Oakland County Circuit Court, Michigan.
* On August 28, Muise argued an important First Amendment case before a 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in Seattle, Washington. In this case, AFDI v. King County, the County rejected our clients “Faces of Global Terrorism” ad, which depicted the actual faces of the FBI’s Most Wanted Global Terrorists, because, according to the County, the ad was demeaning toward Muslims since most of the terrorists were Muslim or engaged in terrorism in the name of Islam.
* We continue with court appearances, depositions, briefs, and motion practice in many other cases as well.
Thank you for your prayers and financial support. We couldn’t do what we do without them!