The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the free speech rights of the Bible Believers group, which protested in 2012 at the Arab American Festival in Dearborn. (Patch file photos)

Christian evangelists who carried a pig’s head on a stick and told Muslims at the 2012 Arab-American Festival in Dearborn they would “burn in hell” were protected by the First Amendment, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled Monday in favor of the evangelical group, the Bible Believers, whose protests in heavily Arab-American Dearborn led to the eventual cancellation of the annual festival.
In its ruling, the 6th Circuit said that the speech was loathsome and intolerant, but protected, and that law enforcement and other public officials have special obligations when confronted with speech that with the potential to incite violence.
“Bearing in mind the interspersed surges of ethnic, racial, and religious conflict that from time to time mar our national history, the constitutional lessons to be learned from the circumstances of this case are both timeless and markedly seasonable,” Judge Eric Clay wrote.



In a rare move, the full court agreed to hear the appeal and set aside 2-1 decision by a three-judge panel in August 2014 that ruled deputies didn’t violate the evangelists’ free speech rights. The case now goes back to U.S. District Court in Detroit, where a judge will calculate damages and relief to the Bible Believers.
During the 2012 Arab American Festival, the evangelical group, armed with signs and preaching messages against Islam, stayed for about an hour and a half.
In response, some members of the crowd threw bottles, pelted the evangelicals with rocks and made obscene gestures were made while the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office routinely stopped in to separate the groups.
The Bible Believers sued Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon and his department after the festival.