An area resident and American Atheists have filed a lawsuit alleging that Bradley County Sheriff Eric Watson is violating the First Amendment by proselytizing and censoring on the Bradley County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page.

Officials filed the suit Monday in federal District Court in Eastern Tennessee in an effort to “stop the sheriff’s policy of censoring comments that are negative or at odds with his personal religious beliefs and to restore residents’ access to the sheriff office’s Facebook page,” according to a news release from American Atheists.

The resident in the suit is using the alias Jane Doe because of fear of retaliation.

On March 28, American Atheists received a complaint about a proselytizing Easter message that Watson posted on the official BCSO Facebook page.

American Atheists sent a warning letter to the sheriff about the post and cited other examples of inappropriate religious messaging on the department’s official social media.

On April 3, the sheriff posted news about the American Atheists’ letter and his response on the BCSO Facebook page, according to the news release.

There’s a segmentwhich is posted on the BCSO Facebook pagein which Watson said that if people don’t like what is posted there, they don’t have to visit it.

Soon after the news was posted on the BCSO Facebook page, American Atheists began receiving complaints that comments critical of the sheriff’s religious statements were being deleted and that people were being blocked from posting on the Facebook page completely, according to a news release.

On Monday, BCSO spokesman James Bradford said that leaders in his office hadn’t officially been served with the suit.

“I believe we’ve gotten some electronic correspondence, but we haven’t been officially served, so until that, we don’t know what’s going on … All we can do is wait and see if we are officially served,” Bradford said. “If we are, we will respond as needed.”

Jane Doe is one of the persons who contacted American Atheists about her comments being deleted and her access to the BCSO Facebook page being blocked. On April 5, American Atheists sent a second letter to Watson informing him of the complaints and requesting records about the BCSO social media policy, according to the news release.

“This lawsuit is about protecting the community’s First Amendment right to speak out about its elected officials,” American Atheists’ National Legal Director Amanda Knief said in a prepared statement. “The BCSO had no problem with public comments until they were critical of the sheriff or of his proselytizing at work. But the government doesn’t get to silence speech it doesn’t like, even if that speech is negative, unflattering and disrespectful of the sheriff’s religion.”

American Atheists and Jane Doe are seeking a restraining order preventing censorship of social media comments and preventing the use of government social media for the sheriff to proselytize.

Ken Paulson, First Amendment Center president/Middle Tennessee State University College of Media and Entertainment dean, provided some insight into the situation.

He said that the establishment clause of the First Amendment says that government officials can’t favor one faith over others.

“So the official Facebook page of a government agency shouldn’t carry religious messages,” he said via email.

He said that the sheriff would be better off sharing his faith as a private citizen on his personal Facebook page.

“Whether this rises to a constitutional violation for which a court is likely to grant relief is another question, though,” he also said. “There are serious violations of the establishment clause all across the country, but a couple of inappropriate Facebook posts on Christmas and Easter [are] pretty modest by comparison. The public would best be served by a new posting policy and withdrawal of the lawsuit.”