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Officer relieved of duty for not harassing ministry workers

A Christian police officer in Pennsylvania reportedly has been relieved of his duties because he refused to take part in illegal harassment and detention of a group conducting a ministry on a college campus.



Last week, Life & Liberty Ministries was conducting one its on-campus outreaches at Kutztown University in eastern Pennsylvania. Ministry president Dennis Green says his group was immediately surrounded by a hostile crowd, and police were called to the scene.

Even though they were on a public university campus and were within their legal rights, campus and borough police ordered the ministry workers to leave and even arrested at least one. According to Green, one of the campus police officers did not agree with that tactic.

"As this was going on, the policeman in charge had asked one of the officers ... to escort us or to arrest us or to make us leave," he recalls. "He refused to do that; he knew we had a right to be there ...."

Green says he has learned that the officer -- whom he describes as "a Christian brother" -- was not fired following the incident, but has been "relieved of his duties" as an officer.

Christian street preachers booted from Penn. school

Two Christian groups say they were ejected from a Pennsylvania university campus for preaching the gospel to an angry group of students.



Activists with the groups Repent America and Life & Liberty Ministries say they were on the Kutztown University campus to pass out gospel literature and speak with students about what the Bible teaches regarding a variety of issues, including abortion and homosexuality. When a crowd of about 300 students gathered to either listen to the preachers or ridicule their message, police told the Christian groups they were not permitted on campus because they did not give two weeks notice and were not sponsored by a campus group.

Two of the preachers were arrested for disorderly conduct because they did not leave the campus immediately. One of them, Michael Marcavage, says because the police did not affirm the preachers' right to be there, the students acted in a more hostile fashion.

"There were all kinds of different reactions to the message," Marcavage explains, "and our presentation was that we have all sinned, we have all violated God's law -- and therefore we're in need of a Savior; and Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no man cometh to the father but by Him."

But instead of removing students in the crowd who were "acting disorderly," he says the police decided to kick the preachers off campus. According to Marcavage, the chief of police was approached to discuss the matter, but "didn't want to hear any of it."

"Instead he demanded that his officers remove us from the campus," says the Christian activist. But at least one of those officers was hesitant to do that -- and may have paid a price for doing so, says Marcavage. "One officer in particular said no, they have a right to be here and [he] was concerned about violating our civil rights. He was quote-unquote 'relieved of duties,'" he remarks.

Marcavage, who has been arrested in similar incidents in the past, says it was not until he was escorted off campus that he learned Kutztown was celebrating the pro-homosexual observance called "Day of Silence." He contends he had the right to be at Kutztown University because it is one of 14 schools owned or operated by the state of Pennsylvania and thus is a "public forum."

Luke 6:22 Blessed (happy-- with life-joy and satisfaction in God's favor and salvation, apart from your outward condition--and to be envied) are you when people despise (hate) you, and when they exclude and excommunicate you [as disreputable] and revile and denounce you and defame and cast out and spurn your name as evil (wicked) on account of the Son of Man.