A pro-life activist has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a Washington, D.C. school against him for protesting outside the educational institution.
Through his lawyers at the Liberty Counsel, Larry Cirignano has asked the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to dismiss the case filed by Two Rivers Public Charter School against him and other people for their peaceful protest outside the school last year, which claimed that their protest caused "emotional distress" and became a "nuisance" to the school.
Cirignano said the plaintiffs have no standing to bring the suit and failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
Planned Parenthood was constructing an abortion clinic in between an elementary and middle school in Washington, D.C. and on Nov. 23 last year, Cirignano held a sign outside the school with a photo of an aborted baby.
Liberty Counsel said the school filed the lawsuit to silence the pro-life advocates. It said Cirignano never trespassed the school property or broke any laws.
"This lawsuit is outrageous. It is shocking that a school entrusted with the care of young children would want an abortion clinic adjacent to its property. Planned Parenthood is brass to construct a death camp beside an elementary and middle school," said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel.
He added that "parents should be forewarned of the dangers which lurk behind the four walls" of their school.
"School officials should be ashamed for trying to hide the clinic from the parents and the public. Our client will not be intimated and deterred in the exercise of his freedom of speech," he said.
In his motion, Cirignano also said plaintiffs "cannot establish standing to assert claims on behalf of students or parents."
"Plaintiffs presume to speak for every student and parent on their rolls in seeking to judicially blot out constitutionally protected expression on public ways, outside their school buildings. Founding such a right to sue on the mere fact of enrollment would render any associational or third-party standing analysis a meaningless exercise," it read.
