City Officials Admit: We Shut Him Down for His Message – ACLJ Files To Hold the City Accountable

Imagine being told by your own government that your voice isn’t allowed. That’s exactly what happened in Carbondale, where a pro-life advocate was shut down simply for what he believes.

A Carbondale, Illinois city official told a pro-life advocate to his face that city leaders were shutting him down because of his message – and that if he'd been saying something they agreed with, he'd have been left alone. The ACLJ just filed its reply brief at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Hamman v. City of Carbondale  to hold the city accountable.

Mark Hamman is a pro-life advocate who regularly witnesses outside a Carbondale abortion facility. On the morning of April 16, he arrived with small, staked signs carrying his pro-life message. Within a short time, city officials had confiscated them.

But this wasn't a routine code enforcement sweep. The city manager personally sent an email directing officers to the scene that morning. Before officers had even decided how to respond, the city attorney sent a text message asking whether the demonstrators were "Coalition for Life personnel" – the pro-life organization that had previously sued the city. That question had nothing to do with where the signs were placed. It had everything to do with who was holding them.

Sign the petition: Stop Criminalizing Saving Unborn Babies.

Then came the moment that says it all. A supervising officer looked Hamman and his pastor in the eye and explained exactly what was happening: City officials "would not condone this because ideologically, I would guess they would not allow these here. But you could say something that was completely different, and I'm sure they would be all for it."

That's not our characterization. That's what a city official said, on the record, to the people whose signs he was confiscating.

Here's where it gets even more revealing. The ordinance the city used to confiscate Hamman's signs bans temporary signs in the "public right of way." Simple enough – except the city can't tell you what that means. Carbondale's own municipal code contains three different, conflicting definitions of "right of way." The officer who removed Hamman's signs came up with his own fourth definition on the spot. And when a federal judge stopped the city attorney mid-hearing and asked him to point to the definition that applies – they cited a section of the code that their own legal team doesn't even use in their appeal.

Meanwhile, signs with other messages within one block of where Hamman was shut down were left standing for days after his were taken.

The ordinance bans political and religious signs – but it explicitly allows commercial signs through a permit system for sidewalk restaurants, sidewalk sales, and block parties. Menu boards? Permitted. Sale banners? Permitted. A two-foot pro-life sign staked in the ground? Confiscated within the hour.

And when it comes to the city's claimed safety justification? The only safety testimony in the entire record came from Hamman himself – who explained he uses staked signs because carried signs blow into traffic. The City banned the safer option.

Carbondale has had every opportunity to explain what their own officer said. Not one official has testified that the officer was wrong about  how conservative speech was treated.

The ACLJ is asking the Seventh Circuit to reverse the lower court and restore Mark Hamman's right to peacefully display his pro-life message. What happened to Hamman isn't an isolated incident – it's a warning.

When city officials can use vague, selectively enforced laws to silence pro-life voices outside abortion facilities, every sidewalk counselor, every peaceful demonstrator, every person of faith who shows up to bear witness to the value of unborn life is at risk.

The pro-life movement depends on the ability to reach people where they are – on public sidewalks, in plain view, with a message that saves lives. If the government can shut that down simply because it disagrees with the message, then the most vulnerable among us, the unborn, lose their loudest advocates when they need them most.

The ACLJ has been defending the right to speak out for life for decades, and we will not stop now. This case goes to the heart of who we are and what we believe: that every life is worth fighting for – in the womb, and in the courts. Take action with us and sign the petition: Stop Criminalizing Saving Unborn Babies.