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Florida woman wins free-speech rights in settlement

Orange County, Florida, has settled a lawsuit with a woman who claimed her First Amendment rights were violated when county employees prohibited her from distributing religious literature in a local public park.

The Orange County Board of Commissioners amended its recreation policy last week to allow literature distribution in all its parks, and has agreed to pay damages to plaintiff Shirley Snyder. The Florida woman was stopped from passing out gospel tracts about Jesus and flyers inviting people to her church's Easter service during an April incident at Cypress Grove Park in Orange County.

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, Snyder's legal representation, says it was always clear that the policy was unconstitutional. "You don't have to get permission from the government or any government committee before distributing literature in a public park," he states. "History and the courts have for a long time protected literature distribution and free speech in the public park."

The attorney explains that having to get government approval amounts to censorship. "Government cannot, must not, require permission simply to pass out a piece of literature to a willing recipient, because of the delay inherent in such a requirement, and the fact that it's arbitrary and someone can censor speech simply from not deciding, or deciding against your message because they don't like your viewpoint," he says.

After the lawsuit was filed in July, Orange County agreed to stop enforcing its literature policy and allowed Snyder to distribute religious materials in its public parks, which Staver says she has done since then. Now that a settlement has been reached, Snyder has agreed to drop her federal lawsuit.

Snyder also previously used Liberty Counsel's help in the early 1990s to successfully sue Orlando International Airport for the right to hand out religious literature during the Easter season.