That is why I put in my editorial comment about the permits. The permit system HAS been misused by the Bloomberg administration to limit the expression of dissent. In almost every context I am for letting people hand things out, speak out, etc. Freedom of expression is critical. And it is rare that I place limits on it in public places. But there are three issues here:

1. separation of church and state: Perhaps a weak arguement in the case of individuals proselytizing on publicly funded space, but consider the use in some places of school facilities for bible study. In both cases a private organization is using public space. Often at least in the case of bible study they may be paying a fee for the use of the facilities. These people aren't. Both cases are gray areas where freedom of expression and freedom of religion on one person's part clashes with the separation of church and state and the freedom of religion of the families (by proselytizing the children without parental permission these people are stepping on our right to free practice of our religion). The hardest lines to draw are the places where constitutional rights of two people conflict.

2. safety: playgrounds, like schools, are not places where it is safe for adults to approach children without the parents knowing about it. What these people are doing strike me as creepy and cultish. If they stood outside the playground and approached the PARENTS, it would be a whole other thing. But sneaking around the parents' backs to try and recruit children, possibly AGAINST the will of the parents, is just plain perverted.

3. the whole issue of permits: To what degree is the requirement for a permit contrary to freedom of expression? There is no question that having a system of issuing permits automatically puts a limit on freedom of expression. And yet we pretty much all agree that unregulated protests that shut down traffic or a cult recruiting a child against the parents' wishes are pushing the limit of freedom of expression. That is where permits come in...but what is the constitutional justification for them? Another grey area.

I guess there is a fourth area, though it gets back to freedom of religion. This kind of behavior is too often accepted of fundamentalist Christians, but can you imagine if these were fundamentalist Muslims? What if they were Hare Krishnas? Chabad at least has the decency to only talk to fellow Jews, not try to convert non-Jews. But what if a Wahabi group was doing the same thing. We have to accept that if we let fundamentalist Christians recruit children behind our backs we have to let fundamentalist Muslims do the same. Yet in our society, despite Freedom of Religion being a major basis for our laws, the former is defended too often and the latter condemned too often. We can't have a double standard where some religions are more free than others.