The Dayton (OH) Daily News reports that on Friday, fire-and-brimstone preacher Orlando Bethel and his wife Glynis filed a federal lawsuit against the Middletown, Ohio school district after school officials objected to the T-shirts worn by their daughter Zoe. The complaint (full text) in Bethel v. Middletown City School District, (SD OH, filed 4/8/2011), challenges the constitutionality of Ohio's compulsory school attendance law and a school practice of having children stand to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In addition the suit alleges that school officials have interfered with the free exercise rights of plaintiffs' children to wear T-shirts with religious messages on them. Plaintiffs' daughter on one day wore a T-shirt that proclaimed "God Hates Whores." On another day she wore a shirt with the slogan: "God Hates Muslims Gays." The complaint alleges in part that: "Glynis Bethel, in order to talk about JESUS CHRIST on the campus used her minor children to strategically plant them in the schools to preach the gospel of JESUS CHRIST as an expression of their Religious beliefs..."
Last Friday police arrested Orlando Bethel on charges of obstructing official business as he interfered with officers' questioning of two of his children about whether the parents were forcing Zoe Bethel to wear the T-shirts. On Monday Orlando Bethel was fined $150 and given a 30-day suspended sentence. The Bethel's have filed some 50 similar lawsuits, mostly in southern states. The pleadings in a number of these lawsuits are posted on the Repent or Burn in Hell message board.
UPDATE: On April 21, an Ohio federal magistrate judge recommended dismissal of the Bethel's lawsuit. (Dayton Daily News.)
