Anti-Gay Preacher Files Federal Suit For Right To Harass At Minneapolis Pride

Anti-gay street preacher Brian Johnson has shown up at Twin Cities Pride for many years, harassing attendees and attempting to thrust bibles into their hands. Twin Cities Pride and the city of Minneapolis have tried numerous tactics to keep Johnson away and recently created a "no pride zone," a special remote area where protesters are allowed to scream safely away from Pride-goers. Yesterday Johnson and the Alliance Defense Fund filed a federal lawsuit.

Aaron Rupar reports at City Pages:

In court documents, Johnson's Alliance Defense Fund attorneys argue that park board rules "banning literature distribution in Loring Park... violate the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment." Johnson, of Hayward, Wisconsin, has handed out Bibles at Pride Fest for years. In 2009, he was denied a booth, showed up anyway to get his message out, and was arrested. The next year, the Park Board approved Johnson's request to be in the park, but said he'll be arrested if he's disruptive. Last year, Pride Fest organizers and the Park Board penned Johnson in with the new "no pride zone" policy, prompting the federal lawsuit. [snip] Said Nate Kellum, an attorney with the Defense Fund: "It's ridiculous to say that the only place where people can hand out Bibles is an area where there's no one to hand Bibles to. The Constitution simply does not permit the board to relegate free speech to isolated regions where no one can receive the message. That's not free speech at all. It's pure censorship."

Pride events nationwide are routinely invaded by chanting, ranting Christianists who spew condemnation and scream biblical verses about homosexuals being "worthy of death." This has happened in dozens of cities for many years. And yet these same people still bring up that one single time that ACT UP demonstrated inside St. Patrick's Cathedral.