[img]https://www.sermonindex.net/images/forum/2004/may/featured_news.gif[/img]SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A federal judge has ruled Salt Lake City's ban on street preachers around the Mormon conference center is constitutional.In a 28-page ruling released Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell upheld the city's rules limiting the places where preachers can stand and sermonize during the church's twice-annual worldwide conferences.The city adopted the zones after the October 2003 conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when two street preachers were assaulted by conference attendees."The city not only has a significant interest, but a duty, to ensure the safety of these persons, as well as others who are walking, driving and demonstrating, near or at the Conference," Campbell wrote.Attorneys for the World Wide Street Preachers Fellowship argued the zones violate the constitutional rights to free speech and unfettered exercise of religion.
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