Rev. Phillip "Flip" Benham, a preacher convicted earlier this year of stalking a doctor who performs abortions, was charged with violating Charlotte's noise ordinance Saturday outside of the gay pride festival.

Benham said he turned down his speaker after officers warned him he was preaching too loudly outside the boundaries of the Pride Charlotte Festival. But later, Benham said, as he read from the first chapter of Romans, which talks about God's wrath against sinful humanity, he got passionate. His voice, he admitted, began to rise as he spoke into the microphone.

Thousands of people attended the Pride Charlotte festival, which is the largest fundraiser for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Charlotte. The event closed several blocks of South Tryon Street, but it also brought dozens of protesters like Benham. Many wore red shirts that said "Repent or Perish."

Benham was apparently the only one arrested.

His arrest was the latest in a string of run-ins with the law for the Concord-based preacher. But he says he's a victim of a city policy that chips away at his First Amendment rights by limiting how loud protesters can get.

"It's the way the city controls us," Benham said. "It controls the message that we speak. The city can control the content of a message if they can control the volume."

The city's noise ordinance requires people using microphones and speakers on city streets to keep the noise below 75 decibels. Officers measure the sound from 10 feet away and typically warn people that they're above the limit before making arrests or issuing citations. That limit is "barely louder than the ambient noise level at Trade & Tryon," Benham says.

But Benham said he was not surprised about the conflict with the authorities, based on previous experiences. He's been arrested four times since January 2010.

In July, he was found guilty of stalking after he distributed hundreds of posters featuring a Charlotte doctor's face and the words, "Wanted ... by Christ, to Stop Killing Babies."

Prosecutors say Benham - a regular visitor to clinics where abortions are performed in Charlotte and across the nation - went to a Charlotte doctor's home and inside his clinic to take pictures.

He's on probation for the stalking charge. It requires him to stay away from the doctor's home and to stay at least 500 feet clear of the clinics where the doctor works.

But he said it doesn't stop him from speaking up at other events.

In fact, he said, his group is already making plans to protest at the Democratic National Convention next year.

"The city of Charlotte really wants me to shut up before the Democratic National Convention gets here," he said. "We're not worried about that. This is our city, and we have a responsibility to her."

Cleve R. Wootson Jr.: 704-358-5046