Judge: Claims against Fla. state attorney dismissed, but assistant state attorney isn’t immune.
Mac Brunson and the leaders of First Baptist Church Jacksonville didn’t much care for FBC Jax Watchdog, one of many Baptist watchblogs.
No surprise there: Brunson was a frequent target of the anonymous blogger’s critiques. The surprise is that the church asked one of its members, a police officer (who is also a Brunson bodyguard) to find out who the blogger was. The officer got assistant state attorney Stephen Siegel to subpoena records from Comcast and Google to unmask the blogger as longtime church member Tom Rich—whereupon the church leadership immediately barred Rich and his wife from ever coming near the sanctuary again.
The inevitable lawsuits followed, and on March 31 United States District Judge Marcia Morales Howard denied Siegel’s efforts to claim immunity. “The limited record before the court does not support a finding that Siegel had any legitimate law enforcement interest in issuing the investigatory subpoenas,” Howard said. In addition, she said, Siegel’s reported actions “appear to violate the very essence of the First Amendment.”
But Howard did dismiss Rich’s complaint against Siegel’s supervisor, then-state attorney Angela Corey, who was acting in her official capacity and is thus protected by 11th Amendment to the Constitution.
Rich is also suing the police officer and the church.
(Sources: Associated Baptist Press, Jacksonville Times-Union, and Religion Clause.)
Posted by Ted Olsen on April 13, 2010 7:00PM
Comments
If your church leadership is spiritually abusive, you know that you would not be safe mentioning any problem in person, and in some cases, your family would not be safe either. I have seen a case where a blogger who criticized a church had a fake resignation letter sent to his employer and a family adoption interfered with. Church leaders sometimes can be vicious, unfortunately. Rich is in the right on this one from all I have read and I wish him well.
Posted by: Provender at April 14, 2010
Is barring them from ever coming near the sanctuary again Biblical Church discipline? Surely the Church leadership knew it was breaking the law when it approached the state attorney?
Posted by: John H. Guthrie at April 14, 2010
What an absolute black eye to Jesus on both sides.
1 Corinthians 6:1-8
"If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church![a] 5I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6But instead, one brother goes to law against another—and this in front of unbelievers! 7The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.
Posted by: BereanGirl at April 14, 2010
I am concerned by several things:
1) Why was the lawsuit "inevitable". Nothing is inevitable.The blogger, who had clearly cast a few stones in his life, could have gone somewhere else.
2) Why a lawsuit? As another repondent has pointed out, the Bible is clear that this is not correct behaviour for followers of Jesus.
3) Why was this blogger sitting behind his anonomous keyboard instead of following the commands of Jesus to speak to the person he felt (rightly or wrongly) was in the wrong?
4) Why was the blogger instantly banned from the church. Don't the teachings of Jesus speak about how we are to deal with those who go astray? Was any chance of repentance and restoration given?
5) I suppose that the answers to 3 & 4 are the same - peope aren't paying attention to their Bibles.
6) Why did the pastor need a bodyguard? Are our lives so filled with fear - or perhaps with self importance - that we feel we need that type of protection? If we do, what does this say about the sinfulness of the world?
Posted by: Jim Sparks at April 15, 2010
Jim - a few answers to your questions
1. I absolutely agree, a lawsuit was not inevitible. But they occured....one that may end up being a very important first amendment case over the right to anonymously blog, and another slander case about the pastor calling me a "sociopath" in the newspaper.
2. I have a different view on lawsuits and scripture, but I'm sure I won't convince you of that so I won't try.
3. I explained this on my blog. One reason I raised the important issues anonymously on the blog was to avoid the certain retribution...and as it turns out my fears were well founded.
4. Once the church obtained my identity from the subpoenas, they never came to speak to me or my wife. They did not follow any sort of biblical church discipline process. Their first action was to give me a list of 16 sins with trespass warnings for boht me and my wife, and banned us from coming onto the premises until we agreed to meet with 6 men of the church with no representation. They did not want to meet my 3 simple requests for a meeting, and thus it never took place. By the way, the reason for my wife's trespass warning? Her first one was "Associating with member committing church misconduct", then the official one filed with the sheriff's office was "Church misconduct". My wife committed no church misconduct, she was not a blogger, and did nothing but serve Jesus Christ faithfully in her church for 20 years, and the men of the church punished her for the "sins" of her husband.
5. The pastor of a large church might very well need a body guard. But when that body guard is also a member of the church, and a law enforcement officer, AND he is also the one that issues subpoenas to find the identity of a critical blogger of the pastor, the conflicts of interest in that are many.
I think the original blog post here is a good one. There is no doubt that the way FBC Jax handled me as the FBC Jax Watchdog is a case study in how NOT to handle a public critic. There is much to be learned by bloggers and by pastors.
Posted by: Tom R at April 16, 2010
"Many will hate you because of Me" Jesus Christ.
We could have saved thousands of words and court time if this verse was understood correctly!
Posted by: Lance Marchetti at December 18, 2010