City of Groveport called out for its ban on faith-based items at festival

GROVEPORT — After fifty years in existence, the City of Groveport decided this past year to ban the sale of “faith-based” items at its annual Apple Butter Day festival. The city’s secular approach to control commerce did not last very long. A legal challenge by one of the seventy vendors challenging the censorship eventually upset the applecart.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) reported the situation developed when Jake and Jan Seabaugh, who had had booths at previous events, decided not to participate this year because the city banned the sale of “faith-based items.” Their products include wood carvings and stained glass, including items with religious themes like crosses, doves, a Star of David, and carved signs with the words “Peace, Believe, Love.”

In a letter to the city, FIRE explained the First Amendment protects the expression of religious and nonreligious views alike.

“The Supreme Court has addressed this sort of scenario more than once. In Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of the University of Virginia, the court held that a public university violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech by denying a religious student magazine access to the same funding resources made available to secular student-run publications. As the court stated, the ‘government must abstain from regulating speech when the specific motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective of the speaker is the rationale for the restriction,’” FIRE reported.

Apple Butter Day is advertised as a family-oriented, non-commercial community event. All items sold or
displayed must be handmade. No commercial items are permitted. Because of the nature and the spirit of the Apple Butter Day festival, preference is given to vendors whose products are crafts using old-fashioned or primitive technique.

FIRE reported, “To Groveport’s credit, the city’s law director called FIRE today and confirmed the city will allow the sale of faith-based items at tomorrow’s festival. The city also reached out to Jake Seabaugh, as well as a church and a religious organization that had previously reserved booths at Apple Butter Day, to notify them of the policy change. Although the application deadline has passed, the city will allow these groups to vend at the festival tomorrow if they so choose. The law director also confirmed the city will initiate a formal review of the vendor policy, including the other unconstitutional restriction on ‘socially offensive language.’”

City officials initially called for the ban by claiming it was needed to avoid “endorsing” religion.

But that reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of the First Amendment, the FIRE explained. “The Supreme Court most recently reaffirmed this principle in Shurtleff v. City of Boston. There, the court held that Boston violated the First Amendment when it denied the plaintiff permission to fly the Christian flag on a city plaza, as the city regularly allowed other outside groups to hold ceremonies and events at the plaza where they could fly flags of their choosing on city flagpoles,” the Foundation reported.

The Bottom Line:

The Bible says in Acts Twenty-Two, “And as they bound Paul with thongs, he said to the centurion who stood by, ‘Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and uncondemned?”

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