Groups’ Booths Ok At Fair After All

Benton-Franklin County Fair officials agreed to allow a handful of community groups to operate booths at the event after a lawsuit was threatened over the groups’ exclusion.

The fair’s board on Monday invited back groups that had previously operated booths but were barred from this year’s fair because they didn’t fit the event’s agricultural theme.

The groups were invited back at the request of both counties’ commissioners after one excluded group, Search and Rescue Ministries, and its lawyer at The American Center for Law and Justice threatened to file a lawsuit alleging religious discrimination. The fair began Tuesday.

Fairgrounds Manager Kelly Dietrich said space was given to Search and Rescue Ministries and two other groups previously rejected by the fair board: Home Health Education Service and Child Evangelism Fellowship.

Another previously excluded group said it was notified of the reversal too late and didn’t have time to prepare to open a booth. Tri-Cities Human Life, an anti-abortion group that had protested its exile from the fair, was offered a space but didn’t take it.

, DataTimes