Cal Zastrow was standing in front of the Lowndes County Adult Detention Center on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, at about 3:30 p.m. Wearing a blue sweat shirt with a picture of a fetus still in the womb and a blue ball cap with a red cross, Zastrow had dressed for the day”s events.
But the county jail was an unanticipated detour on the Personhood Tour. He and about 30 other participants in the tour were waiting for authorities to release Columbus pastor Steve Joiner, who was arrested during the group”s demonstration against abortion.
Joiner, pastor of First Church of the Nazarene on Ridge Road, joined the group”s cause just minutes before the Columbus Police Department threatened to arrest them for obstructing traffic and failure to obey a police officer.
The group, which included a total of about 50 people from all over Mississippi and outside of the state, was standing off Highway 45 North in front of Walgreens at around lunchtime, offering anti-abortion literature to passing cars and holding massive posters depicting aborted babies.
Police arrived soon after, when they received reports traffic was backed up on 45.
“They were holding signs with very graphic images, and vans with lots of posters were driving up and down the road,” said Terrie Songer, Columbus Police spokeswoman. “They were impeding traffic.”
Traffic was at a standstill for about more than a half-mile by the time police arrived.
“We asked them to move on because they were impeding traffic. One local pastor here, Capt. (Fred) Shelton told him numerous times to move on, and he wouldn”t do it, so he was placed under arrest,” Songer said. “Whether you”re for abortion or against abortion is not the issue. It”s the safety of people in the community.”
Zastrow said the group complied with police requests to end the demonstration, but Joiner refused to surrender “his constitutional right.”
“I would do it again, if it meant my life,” said Joiner, when he was greeted in the detention center parking lot by tour participants. Some of the group had gone on to West Point to set up for the next demonstration. They had been to Starkville Wednesday morning.
“I felt like they were trying to get a message across,” said Joiner, who noted Shelton told him he also was a Christian and the police chaplain.
Joiner has stood on the same intersection, on days set aside for anti-abortion demonstrations, he said. He also has protested abortion clinics in New York City.
“I do not think he has a constitutional right to keep me from standing up, holding a sign against abortion,” he said.
“It”s not common for a police captain to arrest pastors for practicing free speech,” said Zastrow.
The Personhood Tour is a joint effort of Pro-Life Mississippi and the Missionaries to the Preborn to gain support for the Personhood Act, a movement to declare “personhood” at fertilization. The two-week tour continues through Friday in Tupelo and Corinth. Prior to Wednesday, the group already had handed out 60,000 pieces of anti-abortion literature in Memphis, Tenn., South Mississippi and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, without an arrest.
Joiner is charged with refusing to obey an officer; his fine was $396, and he faces an April 20 court date. He plans to seek counsel from Liberty University, which bills itself as the world”s largest Christian university, to fight the charge.
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