Twin Cities Pride

Twin Cities Pride seeks Federal Court injunction Tuesday

MINNEAPOLIS — A federal court injunction will be sought by organizers of the Twin Cities Pride Festival unless the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board reverses its approval of an anti-Gay activist to spew his message of sin and condemnation on the festival grounds in Loring Park this weekend.

Attorneys for Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender Pride/Twin Cities said the Park Board is in violation of a US Supreme Court ruling if the board stands by its recent decision to allow avowed homosexual critic Brian Johnson of Hayward, Wisc., to walk throughout Loring Park during the Pride Festival, distributing Bibles while spinning his intolerant and critical views of GLBT Festival-goers. An estimated 200,000 Minnesotans are expected to attend the two-day festival.

Loring Park has been leased from the Park Board as the site of the Pride Festival for more than 30 years. Last year, festival organizers paid more than $36,000 in permit fees, and food and beverage concessions to the Park Board for use of the 34-acre park located on the southwestern edge of downtown Minneapolis.

“The Park Board’s decision is akin to allowing the Klu Klux Klan to openly convey their racist and anti-immigration views at the Cinco de Mayo festival,” said Eileen Scallen, a professor of law at the William Mitchell School of Law and co-counsel to the Pride Festival.

According to Scallen, the Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that a private organization holding a permit to use a public street for expressive purposes could not be compelled by the government to include a group whose message is different from the organizer’s. “Ironically, in that case, a Boston parade organizer denied a GLBT group from participating,” Scallen noted. “And the Court said a permit holder could do so. The Park Board’s actions on behalf of Mr. Johnson are in clear violation of that US Supreme Court ruling.”

“Mr. Johnson is free to hurl invectives against the GLBT community and their families and distribute Bibles on the public sidewalk opposite Loring Park,” added Amy Slusser of the Minneapolis law firm, Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi. “That is his First Amendment right. He just can’t do so in the park while it is being leased for the Pride Festival.”

The order for injunctive relief is expected to be filed Tuesday, June 22, in US Federal District Court in Minneapolis.

More than 300 food, beverage, merchant and non-profit vendors will participate in this weekend’s Pride Festival, including a dozen religious groups representing Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Unitarians and Catholics.

“This year, we’re expecting more than 200,000 members of the GLBT community and their straight brothers and sisters to attend one of the most welcoming, safe and fun festivals in the state,” Scallen said. “We won’t let the Park Board or Mr. Johnson hurt our annual celebration or our guests.”

Celebrating its 38th year in 2010, GLBT Pride/Twin Cities, the organizer of the Twin Cities Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender (GLBT) Pride Celebration, began in 1972 with a small group of activists meeting for a picnic in Minneapolis’ Loring Park and a short march down Nicollet Mall. Over the intervening years, the Twin Cities Pride Celebration has grown to be the largest GLBT Pride Celebration in the region and 3rd largest in the United States, with an estimated combined attendance of nearly 400,000 people at six events. GLBT Pride/Twin Cities is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

It is the mission of GLBT Pride/Twin Cities to commemorate and celebrate our diverse heritage, inspire the achievement of equality and challenge discrimination.