Florida Courts Throw Out Church Of Scientology's Second Request To Block Protests On Saturday
News Channel 8 image by Michael Egger
Scientology received is second blow as Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge W. Douglas Baird rejected a second injunction filed by the Church to have protesters barred from protesting within 500 feet of the Church's Flag Land Base Center in Clearwater, citing similar reasons as the previous request rejected by Judge Linda Allan yesterday.
Though the Tampa Bay Tribune states this second injunction differed slightly, similar assertions were cited by the CoS in its filing. Some additional details on the report:
In the case Allan ruled on, the church was using a process usually used by women who are in fear of their abusive husbands or boyfriends. The church wanted all protestors to remain at least 500 feet away from church structures and officials.Allan noted that the Church of Scientology is a corporation, not a person, and that the process the church's attorneys were seeking to stop the protesters is by law reserved for a "person who is the victim of repeat violence," according to a copy of her ruling.
The church's tact with Judge Baird was slightly different.
The bulk of the second petition was the same as the one Allan reviewed – alluding to threatening anonymous YouTube videos, for instance. But this time Scientology attorneys said the protestors, by standing at the entrances of church buildings, would "chill" church events and services, causing Scientologists not to attend. This, the church said, constituted a violation of church members' Constitutional rights.
Baird noted there was no evidence the 26 individuals named as members of Anonymous in the church's petition were responsible for any threats or wrongful acts against the church. And they hadn't been informed properly of the injunction the church was seeking.
"Under these circumstances, when threats from unknown individuals are received, or when incidents such as the various YouTube or MySpace postings are interpreted as threatening, the matter is more properly one for local law enforcement rather than the constitutionally extreme remedy sought by injunction without notice against these individuals," his ruling said.
In a strange coincidence, around the same time as Judge Baird's ruling was given, the report of a suspicious package was reported by the Church of Scientology at one of its local St. Petersburg orgs. It has since been detonated using a remote robot device by a Tampa Bay bomb squad.
Contained in the package was a "Bible, clothing and personal items."
Not found, a healthy does of skepticism and a dollop of irony.
