In Vegas, an Unholy Alliance

LAS VEGAS â€”  The preacher with a hole in the knee of his jeans and a pocketful of prayer cards waded through the late-night crowd -- young men with hats on sideways, women in saucy dresses, hired hands passing out fliers for escort services. Tom Griner turned a raised palm toward Robert Jones, a 21-year-old visiting from Illinois.

“Jesus saves!� Griner shouted.

“Maybe,� said Jones, not stopping to chat. “But he didn’t win me $500 last night.�

The way the American Civil Liberties Union sees it, the 1st Amendment was made for nights like this. The organization in recent months has turned a small band of street preachers into unlikely symbols of free speech -- fighting, sometimes in noisy confrontations with police and casinos, for the preachers’ right to spread the gospel on the Las Vegas Strip.

The alliance is an awkward one.

The preachers openly despise the ACLU, which they view as an insufferably liberal institution, albeit one that had lately seemed like their only friend in town.

The ACLU doesn’t think much of the preachers’ condemnations of, well, a lot of people, including “fornicators,� Democrats, women who seek abortions and people who have not accepted Christ as their savior.

And the Las Vegas establishment doesn’t think much of the whole issue; evangelical preachers bellowing about “homos,� “porno freaks� and the devil don’t exactly fit with the anything-goes marketing scheme that has served this city well.

But the ACLU forged ahead because, the organization said, a long-percolating dispute between the casinos and the preachers threatened the sanctity of the quintessential American venue for free expression: the sidewalk.

This fall, the group’s campaign resulted in a tenuous agreement among casinos, police and city leaders that allows the preachers to stay. If the agreement holds, it could mark the end of a decade-long fight to give control over the sidewalks back to the public. It was a fight that had been taken up, at one time or another, by a motley collection of people who want to express their opinion in public, including advocates for the homeless, animal rights activists, war protesters and hawkers for erotic dance clubs.

“We know we don’t fit into the motif here,� Griner said. “But they� -- he nodded toward the casinos behind him -- “are not the only game in town.�

*

Courts have long held that sidewalks are constitutionally protected forums for public opinion. Generally, as long as people are doing things that are otherwise legal, they can do it on the sidewalk. Vegas being Vegas, it’s not that simple here.

In 1993, the city was forced to widen portions of Las Vegas Boulevard, including the two-mile stretch known as the Strip that runs along the themed casinos, to accommodate soaring traffic, new resorts and growing tourism. As a result, new sidewalks had to be built on private property in front of large and powerful casinos. Increasingly, the casinos attempted to control the activity on the sidewalks.

The following year, after 500 labor protesters were arrested for trespassing because the MGM Grand complained, civil libertarians launched their fight. It led, eventually, to a lawsuit against the casinos, and in 2001 a federal appellate court sided with a different group of labor union protesters, ruling that the sidewalk in front of the Venetian resort was a public forum though it was on private property.

“What the court said, basically, is that if it looks like a sidewalk, smells like a sidewalk and functions like a sidewalk, then by golly it’s a public sidewalk,� said Gary Peck, executive director of the Nevada ACLU.

Early this year, however, it became clear that casinos, private security firms and some police officers weren’t aware of the ruling -- or were choosing to ignore it. Casino security repeatedly told the preachers that they were on private property and needed to leave. Police officers insisted that the preachers move even after the preachers produced copies of the court opinion. Griner was even cited with obstruction, a misdemeanor, for blocking the sidewalk.

Griner and fellow preacher Jim Webber began videotaping their encounters with security personnel and police officers. Peck and Allen Lichtenstein, Nevada ACLU’s general counsel, became a free-speech SWAT team, descending on the Strip on a moment’s notice to make impassioned, impromptu arguments that the preachers could stay -- confrontations that drew crowds of curious tourists.

Earlier this year, security guards at New York-New York, a resort with a miniature facsimile of Manhattan’s skyline, evicted an Iraq war protester. Such incidents -- and the ACLU’s argument that Las Vegas was sacrificing constitutional rights to guard its carefree image -- caught city leaders’ attention.

Alan Feldman, a senior vice president of MGM Mirage, which owns the MGM Grand and New York-New York, conceded that the casino had erred.

“We made a mistake,� Feldman said. “It was an emotional time. Our staff reacted emotionally instead of remembering the way the law works.�

The Metropolitan Police Department also acknowledged that it has had a difficult time balancing public rights and property rights.

The department had been accused repeatedly of protecting the casinos at the expense of the public, and Sgt. Mark Reddon, a supervisor of officers who patrol the Strip, said some officers had been too aggressive in attempting to evict the preachers and others from sidewalks. But he said the department also must be careful not to let free expression go overboard.

“We wouldn’t want a theater group,� he said, “whose freedom of speech gives them the right to go into a supermarket setting up a stage in there and starting a play.�

In recent months, all sides began operating under an agreement that for-profit enterprises would stay away from sidewalks that were technically private property. Advocates, such as preachers or protesters, can stay -- with certain restrictions. For example, if preachers or protesters carry signs wider than the width of their body, officers may determine they are blocking foot traffic and ask them to move.

“We really have found a way to maintain the best of both worlds, where private property owners are not taken advantage of by commercial interests, the public is not preyed upon by commercial interests and those who wish to express an opinion or political perspective are given access,� Feldman said.

The ACLU does not agree, Peck said, that there should be a distinction between the rights of for-profit enterprises and nonprofit advocates. He said there were new free-speech battles on the horizon, such as a dispute over where news racks can be installed. And he said he was not convinced that the preachers would not be harassed again.

But for now, the long campaign to win 1st Amendment rights for people who want to express an opinion here appears to be winding down, Peck said. And the Police Department soon expects to complete pamphlets that will be passed out to advocacy groups and casinos spelling out the advocates’ rights.

“The pamphlet is meant to guide both sides,� Reddon said. “It is meant to explain to casinos and security that people have the right to express their 1st Amendment rights on those sidewalks. It is also designed to explain to those people out there that there are limits to their rights -- that just because they can express an opinion does not mean they can disrupt business.�

The preachers are well aware that pedestrians on the Strip frequently view them as annoyances. And that is precisely the point, Lichtenstein said. People have long demonstrated or passed out protest literature on sidewalks. Once a business can control the activities of people on its stoop, Lichtenstein said, “it means that someone may or may not be able to speak -- depending on whether someone else likes the message.�

“If the sidewalks are lost we have lost a very serious component of our constitutional freedom,� he said. “The preachers have been looked at as pushing a message that the casinos don’t want on their sidewalk. The problem is, it’s not their sidewalk. And they can’t choose the message.�

*

On a recent Friday night, Griner stood in front of the Bellagio hotel holding a sign that read: “The Sin and the Sinner Go Straight to Hell Together.� He struggled to hold it steady against the desert wind.

Behind him, the Bellagio’s famous fountain spouted water 200 feet in the air as Frank Sinatra -- through speakers hidden in the trees -- sang “Fly Me to the Moon.� Darkness, or what passes for darkness on the Strip, descended. Floodlights illuminated the fake Eiffel Tower of the Paris Las Vegas hotel. Across the street, huge neon lights progressively spelled out the name of the Barbary C-O-A-S-T.

Originally from Texas, Griner, 54, attended Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., performed missionary work in Latin America, and is now the pastor of the South Valley Christian Fellowship in the Las Vegas area, with a congregation of about 125.

Accompanied by members of his congregation, Griner comes to the Strip three times a week, he said. In all, there are about a dozen people who proselytize there in similar fashion.

Griner and his wife, Kathie -- the church’s office manager -- have been married for 25 years. They have three daughters, ages 19 to 23. They are avowed virgins who preach abstinence to teenagers. Griner says he believes that Democrats, as a rule, are hostile toward religion. He donates money frequently to conservative candidates and to the state and national Republican parties.

“Preaching� is something of a misnomer; Griner speaks sparingly and spends most of his energy trying to press prayer cards into the hands of pedestrians.

When someone stops to engage him, he is happy to oblige. He preaches that homosexuality is “against nature,� adding: “We’re not here for them.� He preaches that abortion should be illegal in all cases, including instances of rape, incest or when a woman’s life is in danger.

The preachers have been taunted and cursed by passersby, and concede readily that, to some degree, they ask for it. Griner sees their crusade as a calling. He believes he is a “messenger from God,� that Christians have become caught up in political correctness and in trying to “make friends.� And he believes the church should return to the days of fire and brimstone.

“We are disturbing the atmosphere out here, but doing it in a positive way,� Griner said. “People are out here to sightsee and people are out here to party. But you never know when someone is going to walk by and be ripe for this conversation.�

On this night, as on many others, no one was. The Griners, joined by one member of their congregation, stood on the sidewalk in front of the Bellagio for nearly three hours. There were no dramatic conversions. There was only one substantive conversation -- and that was with a devout Christian who scolded Griner for scaring people away from their religion.

Another woman who walked by with friends took a look at Griner’s sign and shouted: “I am a sinner and I am going straight to hell!�

The crowd cheered.

“It doesn’t have to be that way,� Kathie Griner called after her.

“I want it that way!� the woman yelled back.

For the most part, however, the Griners were simply ignored. After their lengthy struggle to be there at all, they made clear that they were satisfied with that. And some onlookers were impressed with their fortitude, given the surroundings.

“If you believe in it, you should push it,� said Garrett Midkiff, a 24-year-old student visiting from Arizona. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to go gamble and drink some more. But I look up to them for doing this. And what better place to do it than the city of sin?�