Summary
Good News Community Church, led by Pastor Clyde Reed, is a small church in Gilbert, Arizona. Because it meets in temporary locations, the church depends on the use of small, temporary signs to invite and direct the community to its services.
The Town of Gilbert, however, severely restricted signs in terms of their size and time of display, while permitting a wide array of other signs with much more lenient guidelines In fact, to comply with Gilbert's sign code, Pastor Reed was forced to put signs up well after the sun was down, and leave swiftly after the service's conclusion to take the signs down. A failure to comply could lead to fines or jail time.
ADF represented Pastor Reed at the U.S. Supreme Court in a case argued by Senior Counsel David Cortman. The Court ruled 9-0 in favor of Pastor Reed, setting a powerful precedent when it held that Gilbert's sign code violated free speech protections guaranteed by the First Amendment.
This victory protects the right of some 350,000 congregations throughout the country to offer a message of hope to their communities—and set a precedent that can be used to defend all types of speech, from passing out flyers to speaking in public. This decision is even being used to challenge unconstitutional speech zones on college campuses, and to defend the rights of Christians to speak in the public square on the same terms as everyone else.
Our role in this case
Alliance Defending Freedom represented the Church and Pastor Reed in defense of their rights to free speech and free exercise of religion.
What's at stake
The ability of the government to censor religious speech
The ability of the government to choose to value one type of speech over another
The freedom of churches to place signs inviting people to their services and activities on equal terms with other non-commercial signs
Related Articles
Press Releases
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June 18th, 2015Supreme Court: Govt cannot judge speech based on how ‘worthy’ it is -
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December 15th, 2014ADF to Supreme Court: Ariz. town’s excuses for speech discrimination fall short -
September 26th, 2014Broad support for overturning Ariz. town's targeted speech restrictions
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September 16th, 2014ADF to US Supreme Court: End govt speech discrimination against churches
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July 1st, 2014US Supreme Court agrees to take up govt speech discrimination against churches
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March 6th, 2014ADF: Supreme Court should end govt speech discrimination against churches
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October 21st, 2013Supreme Court asked to stop gov’t discrimination against church signs
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February 27th, 2013Ariz. town: Church signs tightly regulated, political signs…well, not so much
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November 20th, 20099th Circuit says Gilbert church must be heard on religious sign discrimination
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October 27th, 2008ADF attorneys appeal ruling against halting flawed sign ordinance
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January 10th, 2008Revised sign policy in Arizona town fails to remove unconstitutional discrimination -
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May 9th, 2007After facing lawsuit, town of Gilbert decides to cease discriminatory practice against local churches
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March 8th, 2007ADF attorneys file suit against town of Gilbert officials for discriminatory practice against churches
Case Documents
Additional Resources
David Cortman: An important blow for free speech (National Review, 2015-06-23)
Jeremy Tedesco: Little church, little signs, big decision (Arizona Republic, 2015-06-22)
Video: Supreme Court: Govt cannot judge speech based on how 'worthy' it is.
Case Profiles
