Annie Frazer was among dozens of gay and lesbian protesters who objected to a proposal by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin to create ‘free speech zones’ that would restrict where people could protest. (Photo by Ryan Lee)
ATL scraps effort to create ‘free speech zones’ Proposal stems from street preachers protesting at Pride
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin was forced Tuesday to back down from a proposal to create “free speech zones” that would actually limit where protesters can demonstrate during large city festivals. The mayor’s proposal stems from incidents at Gay Pride in recent years, but the measure was widely rebuked by gay activists and others as anti-democratic, Orwellian doublespeak.
“In Atlanta we try to make sure there’s a balance of the various First Amendment rights,” said Greg Pridgeon, Franklin’s chief of staff. “We think that people who want to protest ought to be able to have access [to festivals and large events], to be in a spot where they can be heard, be seen, and have their presence felt.
“What we don’t like is for people who have a diverging point of view to get a point where there is some type of confrontation possible, and there has to be some type of arrest — we prefer not to have that,” Pridgeon continued. “Our desire was to find some balance — obviously we missed the mark a little bit, or maybe a lot.”
The proposed ordinance — which will go before the full City Council June 18 but is now considered dead on-arrival — would allow large event organizers to request the creation of “free speech zones,” where protesters espousing viewpoints contrary to the overall theme of the event would be restricted to demonstrating. The ordinance also empowers event organizers to determine “who is authorized to exercise her/his First Amendment rights as part of the outdoor festival on that day, and shall issue such people a badge to be worn indicating such authorization.”
In a sign of how unpopular Franklin’s proposal was, even the City Council member who had been carrying the legislation through the Atlanta City Council bolted from the ordinance during a committee meeting Tuesday. />
“I think it wasn’t well thought out,” said Councilmember Jim Maddox, who noted that he sponsored the legislation on behalf of Franklin as a mere formality. “One of the basic rights of this country is free speech, so if we ever lose that, I think the city would lose one of the rights that has made this country so great.”
Opposition to the proposed ordinance was broad enough to stretch from gay rights activists to Baptist street preachers who consider homosexuality a sin.
“As a lesbian, I value the fact that people come to the Pride parade and stand there and preach fire and brimstone,” Annie Frazer said during the committee hearing. “I don’t always want to hear what they have to say, I usually don’t choose to engage with them, but I value and honor the fact that they can come, that they can engage in dialogue with people who choose to engage them, and that I have the opportunity to hear what they believe.
“I think it’s crucial that we be allowed to express our First Amendment rights everywhere — America is a free speech zone,” Frazer added.
Pastor Billy Ball, who frequents Gay Pride events to condemn homosexuality, expressed a similar sentiment.
“We already have 50 ‘free speech zones’ called the United States of America,” Ball said in a telephone interview.
Staked outside of Piedmont Park with a bullhorn and inflammatory signs about God’s disapproval of sodomites, Ball has been hard to miss at Atlanta’s Gay Pride in recent years.
“Everyone who comes in Gay Pride or leaves Gay Pride comes by me,” Ball said proudly.
The presence of Ball and other anti-gay preachers at Pride has been an increasing source of angst for event organizers, said Donna Narducci, executive director of the Atlanta Pride Committee.
“It became of greater concern to the Atlanta Pride Committee over the past few years because the numbers of protesters has increased each year,” Narducci said. “We dealt with this issue last year in a more in-depth way [than previous years], and the city law department helped us with that.
“I think what they attempted to do this year [with Franklin’s proposed ‘free speech zone’ ordinance] was codify that for all outdoor festivals,” Narducci added.
In 2006, the Atlanta city law department opined that the Gay Pride festival area included not only Piedmont Park, but also the sidewalks surrounding the park.
“That was the assigned area, and where we would have our message heard,” Narducci said.
When Ball and his band of bible-thumping protesters were demonstrating on Piedmont Avenue bordering the park, they were told by Atlanta Police Department officers to move across the street. When the protesters refused to move, they were arrested and charged with criminal trespassing.
“We’re not there to stop that event from happening,” Ball said about Pride. “On the other hand, those sidewalks surrounding Piedmont Park — you can’t turn those sidewalks on and off like a light switch, and say this is a public sidewalk on Friday and a private sidewalk on Saturday.”
Ball filed a $2 million civil suit in Fulton Superior Court against the city after his arrest. His charges as well as the lawsuit are still pending.
“We wonder why this so-called tolerant group of homosexuals can’t be tolerant of us coming to preach,” Ball added.
But restricting where protesters can camp out is about safety, not tolerance, Narducci said.
“Obviously this is a very, very hot-button issue for folks and I understand and appreciate that,” Narducci said. “As an event organizer, our concerns are perhaps more broad because we have to look out for the fact that when there are hundreds of thousands of people [at Pride], and there are protesters there, in a split second it can turn into a chaotic, if not violent, situation.”
The Atlanta Pride Committee and other producers of large city festivals are usually consulted about changes to the city code dealing with outdoor events, but Narducci said Pride first learned about Franklin’s proposal last week. The Atlanta Pride Committee did not request or craft the legislation, and does not support it in its current form, she said.
“It still needs some work,” Narducci said.
But many believe any attempt to create “free speech zones” is an embarrassment to city government and should be abandoned.
“In our view the ordinance is unfixable and unconstitutional,” said Gerry Weber, legal director of the ACLU of Georgia.
Some gay activists warned that while protecting Pride attendees from unwanted religious protesters, the proposed ordinance could be used to curb everything from anti-war protests to the upcoming U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta.
“It was clear that is was just about zoning free speech across the board, and that it really didn’t matter what the audience was,” said Will Cordery, a queer organizer with the
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