Open-air preaching once formed a regular part of American public life. Evangelist Billy Graham and countless others before him stood in streets, parks, and open lots and called hearers to recognize their sin and turn to Christ for salvation. That message of human failure and divine rescue traveled ordinary thoroughfares without apology. The same activity now often draws charges of political motive or public offense. The First Amendment continues to protect peaceful proclamation of that message on public sidewalks whether the words strike listeners as religious, political, or unwelcome.
This past month, Richard Penkoski and David Grisham stood on the public sidewalks near Trinity Pride Fest along South Main Street in Fort Worth, Texas. Video recorded the afternoon of June 27, later posted on X, captures the exchange with a female officer.
“If someone is offended by your talking, then we have a problem,” the officer told the preachers. Asked whether a citation would follow for offensive speech, she answered, “Yes, absolutely,” adding that the charge would be disorderly conduct.
The video circulated widely after the account Libs of TikTok reposted the original on July 8. It should be noted that Penkoski and Grisham are hardly earnest street preachers: the two seek to incite, not to save misguided people from their sins. But First Amendment protections still apply to that speech, regardless of its sincerity and conviction.
On July 10, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division described the footage as troubling and said the Division was examining the matter. By July 13 the Division sent a formal letter to the City of Fort Worth. The letter requested department policies on expressive activity in public forums, First Amendment training materials, and records of complaints dating to 2015 that alleged officers restricted protected speech. The city received thirty days to respond while the Division decided whether to open a formal investigation.
Unfortunately, the Fort Worth case is not an isolated event. Harassment of Christian street preachers has occurred repeatedly in American cities.
In June 2022, Matthew Meinecke read Bible passages aloud at Seattle’s PrideFest and at a separate public rally. Officers ordered him to leave both locations after attendees reacted with hostility, then arrested him when he remained. The Ninth Circuit later held that the removals rested on audience reaction or “content-based heckler’s vetoes” rather than any independent violation of law.
A similar incident occurred in Orlando. In 2025, Maurice and Brittany Price walked near an Orlando Pride parade holding signs that declared “Hell is real. Only Jesus Saves” and “Repent or perish.” Officers pinned Maurice to the ground, handcuffed both, and held them for several hours.
The cycle of preaching, crowd reaction, police intervention, and later legal correction repeats from city to city with little lasting consequence for the officers who initiate the restriction. Local officers cave to audience offense or fear of conflict as sufficient reason to order preachers to move on or to issue citations on the spot. There is, of course, the possibility that the local police involved in these cases are personally antagonistic to the message of the street preachers. Individual officers, however, almost never face personal discipline, suspension, or criminal charges for the constitutional violation itself. Qualified immunity and internal departmental practices shield most of them from individual liability.
Police departments should anticipate that street preachers will be present at major public events and should approach those situations with the presumption that peaceful speech is protected, even when it is unpopular. Officers should make every reasonable effort to safeguard the free speech and assembly rights of preachers, including protecting them from intimidation, harassment, or physical interference by members of the public.
Public sidewalks and streets remain traditional public forums under long-settled First Amendment law. Peaceful speech in those forums cannot be restricted solely because listeners find the content disagreeable. The recorded statements placed the content of the preachers’ message at the center of the threatened enforcement.
Street preachers standing on public sidewalks near a Pride gathering are exercising their own right to speak in a forum historically open to competing viewpoints. Their message of sin and salvation does not prevent others from expressing different views in the same public space. By contrast, when campus activists surround a scheduled speaker, shout down the presentation, or otherwise prevent the event from proceeding, they are not merely adding their own expression. They are interfering with another person’s ability to exercise free speech. The sidewalk preacher adds another voice to an open public thoroughfare. The campus disrupter seeks to prevent an invited speaker from being heard in the setting designated for the event.
The proper response to a hostile crowd in the public space is to restrain unlawful conduct by the crowd, not to silence the speaker who provoked the reaction. Ironically, many of the events where these conflicts arise are organized in the name of tolerance and inclusion. If those principles are to have any meaning, they must extend to viewpoints that participants strongly disagree with, including religious messages that challenge prevailing cultural beliefs.
Alex Littlefield, PhD, is a former Assistant Professor of International Trade in Taiwan and Teaching Fellow in China. His research areas include international trade and regional security. His most recent publication is a book chapter on China’s nuclear forces in Learning to Love the Bomb: Understanding the American Nuclear Arsenal (Cambria Press, 2026). He lives in Washington, DC, and serves as an independent scholar and Fellow with the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.
More from IRD:
Are We Seeing the End of Free Speech?
Continuing Challenges to Religious Freedom in Europe and America
Can Free Speech Be Revived on College Campuses?
Comment by Corvus Corax on July 28, 2026 at 9:50 am
The evolution of first amendment law is pretty remarkable. The original 1A concept is that the federal government shouldn’t be allowed to outlaw certain political positions. In practice, even this has been a stretch. People on the political fringe have always attracted attention from federal law enforcement, sometimes justified and sometimes not.
Today, thanks to the tireless work of civil rights lawyers in the middle of the 20th century, we have a more perfect system: local law enforcement must delicately referee shouting matches between rival mentally ill hecklers. This is because of the logical relationship between a series of legal abstractions including “viewpoint neutrality” and the “public forum” among others.
Prior to the present age, localities were permitted wide latitude to restrict expressive content regardless of format, and restrict expressive format regardless of content. Surprisingly, the brutish race which subscribed to these benighted principles achieved peace and prosperity and mastery over a great continent. However, we are much cleverer today.
Comment by Wilson R. on July 28, 2026 at 10:53 am
Most of the street preachers I’ve encountered in my lifetime were hellfire-and-damnation cranks who hindered the cause of Jesus much more than helped it. Some are far more dangerous, like the Westboro Baptist Church crowd. Still, such speech is generally protected, and the proper response to crazy or hateful speech is more speech.
And yet the author here seems to sail right over the nuances that he presents in the story. From his presentation of events, the charge of disorderly conduct appears to be grossly unjustified. But then he turns around and says these two men are “hardly earnest street preachers; they seek to incite…” Speech that incites violence doesn’t enjoy the same protection as other speech. Is there something about this incident we’re missing? Possibly. I would hope that the author could find a more reliable source of information than the notoriously unreliable “Libs of Tik-Tok.”
The real test of our commitment to free speech is whether we will defend it when we detest what the speaker is saying. If I chose to stand on a public sidewalk in front of First Baptist Church Dallas, and street-preach before Sunday worship against the corruption of the gospel at the hands of their religion-of-hate pastor, Robert Jeffress, would the author and IRD complain when church members called the police to handcuff and remove me? Consider me skeptical.
Comment by Qohelet on July 28, 2026 at 11:52 am
The IRD does deserve credit for being consistent on free speech issues. There’s very few other places in the conservative sphere where liberals are allowed to challenge conservative thinking. If they didn’t actually believe in free speech we’d be long gone.
Comment by David on July 28, 2026 at 11:54 am
At least one can walk away from street preachers. Worse are subway preachers who do not leave the car until they finish their “message.” Some people actually prefer silence on public transportation.
Comment by Gary Bebop on July 28, 2026 at 12:42 pm
Street preachers are a venerable American tradition. They may offend, but, in fact, they may have the tacit blessing of the many they offend. I know this from firsthand experience. The street preachers I’ve known have often been young Bible school students or seminarians. They are savvy, courageous, compassionate, and committed.
Comment by Wilson R. on July 28, 2026 at 2:40 pm
In the past couple of weeks, following a story in the Washington Post, there has been some attention for the phenomenon of people on airplanes who get up in the middle of a flight and start preaching, or even get a guitar and sing. Some airlines have allowed this, while others have not. The issues are a bit more complex than with street preachers, since people on a plane cannot just choose to walk on by.
Comment by Katherine on July 31, 2026 at 8:39 am
The free speech principle should also be applied to people standing in public spaces near Muslim gatherings. Often local authorities are too frightened to defend the speakers.