Blind Woman Banned from City Park for ‘Conversations about Jesus’ Files Complaint

A blind Rhode Island woman filed a charge of religious discrimination with the state Commission for Human Rights Tuesday after a local park banned her from the premises for two years and threatened her with arrest for having conversations with patrons about Jesus.

Gail Blair, who is blind from a genetic condition known as retinitis pigmentosa, says in the discrimination charge she was never combative and never argued with anyone who wanted to end the conversation in Wilcox Park in Westerly, R.I. She also says she didn’t follow people. 

Blair handed a copy of the Gospel of John to those who talked with her.

Blair filed the discrimination charge against The Memorial and Library Association, which manages Wilcox Park and Westerly Public Library in Westerly, R.I. She was banned from the adjacent library even though she says she never had a conversation with any strangers in the building about Christ.

Blair is claiming “unlawful discrimination … on the basis of my disability and my religious beliefs.”

“I respectfully request that the Commission intercede and require the Memorial and Library Association to make amends for their unlawful discrimination, and to permit me to return to the park and library to make full use of its accommodations and services, including through peaceful, civil, and non-confrontational conversations about Jesus,” she wrote.

First Liberty…