The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously ruled in favor of an Arizona church and
against a local law that essentially forced churches to display their signs at
night, while allowing other types of signs to be displayed 24/7.
As previously reported, in 2008, Good News Community Church of
Gilbert filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to obtain an injunction against
the city’s sign ordinance, which prohibited entities from displaying temporary
directional signs on the public ways more than 12 hours before services and more
than 1 hour afterward.
The church had found itself in disputes with the city prior to filing the
suit, as officials claimed that members were displaying too many signs and was
leaving them up for too long. A directional sign is a sign with an arrow,
pointing traffic to a particular event or location.
