Park Service stops requiring permits for most river baptisms in Arkansas and Missouri

Ozark residents can head back to the river to baptize and celebrate without a federal permit. The Ozark National Scenic Riverways unit of the National Park Service had required residents to get a permit two days in advance to perform baptisms in streams, but dropped the policy after facing public backlash, Jennifer Davidson reports for KSMU Ozarks Public Radio. (Riverways photo: The bend in Jacks Fork River is known as 'Baptizing Hole')

Republican U.S. Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri told Davidson that many of his constituents were “Absolutely outraged that some agency could control their religious activities. . . . A lot of times, someone may decide to be baptized on a Sunday morning. And so, then they’ll go down and do the baptism service on Sunday evening. And a baptism only lasts for a couple of minutes, yet no one needs a permit to go down there and swim in the river, which lasts a much longer time.”

Smith, who wrote a letter to the superintendent of the riverways, "said these are public waterways, and Washington shouldn’t be able to regulate traditions his area has held for generations," Davidson reports. The superintendent wrote back the next day to say the policy had been scrubbed.

Faye Walmsley, a spokesperson for the park, told Davidson that the special-use permit had been in place since 2006, saying “[It’s] so there’s no conflict of activities in certain areas, and also so that it’s managed so it protects the natural and cultural resources of the park.” Although permits will not be required for baptisms in general, Walmsley added that if a church wants to perform a baptism at a gravel bar that’s closed to vehicles, the church will still need a special use permit to get access, which often requires a locked gate to be opened by a staff member, Davidson reports.