Twin Cities Pride

Pride Festival Organizers Ask Federal Court for Emergency Order Directing Park Board to Abide by US Supreme Court Ruling

Want anti-gay activist prohibited from freely distributing materials throughout festival

MINNEAPOLIS — Organizers of the Twin Cities Pride Festival have asked the Federal Court to reverse the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s permission for an anti-gay activist to hand out flyers and other materials at the Pride Festival in Loring Park this weekend. More than 200,000 Minnesotans are expected to attend the two-day festival.

In a 28-page request for an emergency order from the Federal Court in Minneapolis, attorneys for Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender Pride/Twin Cities said that by allowing avowed homosexual critic Brian Johnson of Hayward, Wisc., to disseminate written materials that support his message of sin and repentance — views that contradict Pride’s mission of celebration — on leased festival grounds at Loring Park, the Park Board is in violation of a 1995 US Supreme Court ruling.

Loring Park has been leased from the Park Board as the site of the Pride Festival for more than 30 years. In 2009, 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. Fees are expected to be comparable this year.

“We have said all along that Brian Johnson and his family are welcome to come to our Pride Festival and speak to attendees — as long as there is no threat of violence on their part,” said Eileen Scallen, a professor of law at the William Mitchell College of Law and co-counsel to the Pride Festival. “That is his first amendment right. He can distribute his materials from a city sidewalk, over which we have no permit, across from Loring Park. That is his first amendment right.”

“But Mr. Johnson and his family have no right to protest our message of Pride by distributing leaflets or any other written materials on park property that we have leased,” Scallen added. “By allowing Mr. Johnson and his family to distribute written materials promoting their viewpoint, the Park Board is giving them permission to be a free-loading, unauthorized exhibitor at the Pride Festival and exempting them from the obligations of our 300-plus exhibitors — including more than a dozen religious organizations —  that have leased booth space, are responsible of litter clean up and have signed a truthful statement of nondiscriminatory support for us.”

Pride refused to approve Mr. Johnson’s application for an exhibitor booth this year because of his “untruthful application for booth space in 2009 and his anti-gay messages,” Scallen added.

According to Amy Slusser of the Minneapolis law firm, Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, and Pride co-counsel, the request for emergency order asks the Federal Court to direct the Par k Board to follow the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Hurley v Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston and allow festival organizers to stop Mr. Johnson and his family members from distributing materials, products or other tangible items on the Loring Park grounds for which Pride has a permit, as this interferes with Pride’s right of free speech.

In the Hurley case, a Boston parade organizer had denied a GLBT group the opportunity to participate and the Supreme Court said the permit holder could rightfully do so, Slusser said. “The Supreme Court in Hurley is clear; the Park Board is on the wrong side here,” she said. “The Twin Cities Pride Festival is an act of protected free speech and opposing groups are not allowed to interfere with Pride’s first amendment rights on leased festival grounds.”

Pride attorneys hope their legal argument compels a Federal judge to hold a hearing before Saturday, at which the viewpoints of Pride and the Park Board would be presented. After the hearing, the judge may:

• grant a temporary emergency order directing the Park Board to reverse its decision, or
• issue a different temporary order, or
• rule that Pride is not entitled to an emergency order because this situation is not an emergency or because Pride is not likely to win the dispute in the long run.

Whether or not an emergency order is issued, attorneys for Pride and the Park Board will likely ask for permanent clarification from the Federal Court.

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 one of the largest in the United States. 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.

Contact: Jim Kelley
Mobile: 612-331-7839
E-Mail: jmk@visi.com

— or —

Eileen Scallen
Mobile: 612-306-9619
E-Mail: eileen.scallen@wmitchell.edu