Three consecutive New York attorneys general went to great lengths to monitor a Brooklyn pastor and his congregation. The believers’ alleged infraction? Engaging in pro-life activism. The surveillance effort included a hidden camera and undercover agents.
Attorney General Letitia James, like her two predecessors, has pursued various charges of harassment against Rev. Kenneth Griepp and members of his church since 2017. As part of the spying campaign, the Democrat AGs installed hidden security cameras at a local abortion clinic.
But the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals shot down the campaign against Griepp. The court dismissed James’s bid for a preliminary injunction against the protesters because she “failed to establish a likelihood of success on the merits as to most claims.”
“It may be particularly appropriate to reconsider whether there were violations,” the appellate court added.
Griepp, senior pastor of Church at the Rock, argued that the state’s lawsuit made it more difficult for his church to organize because congregants feared threats of punitive legal action from the office of the AG. Griepp declared he believes counseling women outside the abortion clinic is his calling.
“The political powers have rejected God in this sphere of life,” Griepp told the Washington Free Beacon. “We rejoice in the persecution. Does that make it easier? No. But it does allow us to understand that this is part of following the Lord.”
The Free Beacon reported:
The New York attorney general’s office, which did not respond to a request for comment, claimed the pro-life activists crowded and threatened women outside of the Choices Women’s Medical Center in Queens. The state complaint details how officials planted hidden cameras outside of the abortion clinic and hired undercover investigators to infiltrate the sidewalk events in an attempt to prove there was harassment. Stephen Crampton, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, the nonprofit religious liberty firm that represented Griepp, said this is an example of the state targeting its political enemies to the benefit of its political allies.
“It looks to all the world that this is a targeting of pro-life activists who happen to be persistent and effective,” Crampton told the Free Beacon. “So the dirty work here is done by the state and not the clinic itself.”
Democrat attorneys general have targeted pro-life activists before. As the attorney general of California, Kamala Harris investigated pro-life journalist David Daleiden after his hidden cameras captured top abortion officials talking candidly about their organ harvesting operations.
Harris’s successor, Xavier Becerra, now Joe Biden’s secretary of Health and Human Services, filed 15 felony charges against Daleiden in 2017.
Daleiden said of the actions against him:
For years, Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry have been cultivating patronage relationships with powerful pro-abortion politicians in law enforcement leadership roles in order to silence and persecute pro-life voices while also obstructing justice in investigations of abortion crimes.
Americans are waking up to this corrupt abortion industrial-political complex, and the facts will continue to come out about how some of the most powerful so-called public servants in the country have abused their power to shield special-interest abortion businesses from any criticism or scrutiny.
The Griepp case will now go to district court for a debate on regulations related to gatherings outside of abortion clinics.
Merle Hoffman, founder and CEO of the pro-abortion Choices Women’s Medical Center, said she expects future victories in court.
“I can count on one hand during the last decades when they have been successful because nothing and no one will stop women from seeking abortions when they need them,” said Hoffman.
Crampton said the decision from the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gives hope to pro-life activists who simply want to voice their beliefs as protected by the First Amendment.
“What this is about, and nothing else, is the viewpoint and the content of the pro-life speech on the sidewalks,” he told the Free Beacon. “When we lose the right to say things that are unpopular and that folks don’t want to hear, we pretty much lose everything here.”
This court decision comes as the Supreme Court on Wednesday failed to act on a request to block a Texas law that went into effect the same day – effectively allowing the pro-life Texas legislation to stand. The law prohibits most abortion after six weeks, leading critics to call it the most restrictive abortion ban in the nation.
