{"id":33182,"date":"2026-10-21T14:15:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T18:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=33182"},"modified":"2026-10-21T14:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T18:15:12","slug":"arizona-man-sues-city-for-religious-preaching-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/10\/arizona-man-sues-city-for-religious-preaching-ban","title":{"rendered":"Arizona Man Sues City For Religious Preaching Ban"},"content":{"rendered":"
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David Hoffman \/ Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An Arizona street preacher is suing the city of Tucson after being arrested for \u201csermonizing\u201d during a Christmas festival. David Hoffman is a street preacher who has shared the Gospel at large public gatherings for decades, prompted by a calling he received in sixth grade. \u201cWhat we do is we share the gospel with people that are most likely never going to go into a church, and we go to events and places where there’s not already a Christian witness, and we have conversations,\u201d he told Fox News Digital<\/em><\/a>. For ten years, he has attended Tucson\u2019s Winterhaven Festival of Lights to share his faith with attendees. However, during last year\u2019s festival in December 2025, he was banned from entering festival grounds due to the event\u2019s new policies which prohibited preachers like Hoffman on the grounds and only allowed them to speak in a designated \u201cfree expression zone\u201d outside. Hoffman described the site as \u201clike a cage.\u201d \u201cAnd it felt kind of, just really, it felt funny because it’s like, you know, putting the Christians over kind of in this specific area,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When Hoffman attempted to speak to festival goers, he was threatened with arrest for criminal trespass. \u201cUpon entering the event, we were told that we can’t have any kind of religious expression. They said that you can be there to participate in looking at the lights. But the moment, you know, we tried to talk to somebody or give out a gospel tract, that would lead to a violation of what they were enforcing,\u201d he said. He was told his attempts to discuss Jesus with attendees would be considered \u201csermonizing\u201d and would violate the new policies. He was even told if he was approached by someone asking how to be saved, he would have to take the discussion outside the festival grounds. After receiving several warnings, Hoffman was eventually escorted out of the event by four police officers.<\/p>\n

Hoffman is now represented by First Liberty Institute (FLI), which warned the city that the ban was unconstitutional in December 2025. \u201cThis event is happening on city streets and city sidewalks, and in constitutional law, those areas, along with, say, a public park, offer the most constitutional protection of any location you can be at,” said First Liberty legal counsel Garrett Bell. The city did not respond to FLI\u2019s complaint. \u201cNoise, including from traffic on Fort Lowell Road, forces Hoffman to shout and raise his voice, undermining his conversational style,\u201d the complaint contends. \u201cSequestering Hoffman and those with him in a small zone away from the festival demeans them in front of the same people they are trying to reach.\u201d The city of Tucson has not released any statements regarding the pending complaint, although it has been reported that the new ordinance was added due to complaints. Brad Jacob, a constitutional law scholar at Regent University School of Law, expects a quick resolution to the lawsuit. \u201cThis looks like blatant content-based speech restriction by the government, and I think they\u2019re pretty clearly going to lose as the thing stands,\u201d he said<\/a>. Hoffman is pressing for a quick resolution as he sees the real issue as an eternal one. \u201cA lot of people are living in brokenness. A lot of people are living in separation from God,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, we go to events like Winterhaven that have a lot of people because that\u2019s the greatest opportunity to reach the most people with the gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Arizona street preacher is suing the city of Tucson after being arrested for \u201csermonizing\u201d during a Christmas festival. David Hoffman is a street preacher who has shared the Gospel at large public gatherings for decades, prompted by a calling he received in sixth grade. \u201cWhat we do is we share the gospel with people…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":33185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nArizona Man Sues City For Religious Preaching Ban<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Arizona street preacher David Hoffman sues Tucson over new restrictions on sharing the Gospel at the city's Winterhaven Festival of Lights.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Arizona Man Sues City For Religious Preaching Ban","description":"Arizona street preacher David Hoffman sues Tucson over new restrictions on sharing the Gospel at the city's Winterhaven Festival of Lights.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/10\/arizona-man-sues-city-for-religious-preaching-ban","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Arizona Man Sues City For Religious Preaching Ban","og_description":"Arizona street preacher David Hoffman sues Tucson over new 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