The City of Cookeville paid $72,500 in attorney’s fees and damages last week to settle a lawsuit filed last year by a Sumner County man who alleged his freedom of speech and religion rights were violated during an Upper Cumberland Pride Festival. Timothy J. Brown filed the suit  in U.S. District Court against the city and one of its police officers last May.

Brown and two others, who were holding signs with Bible verses, were accused of saying “offensive things” to festival attendees, inferring the gay community was violating God’s will.

Brown and the other two men were allegedly asked by police to move away from the Pride festival.

Brown says he was “exercising his constitutional rights and free exercise of religion by peacefully sharing his Christian message in a public park in the city,” and he was threatened with arrest under the city’s code.