Liberty Counsel Sues LA City over Viewpoint Discrimination

A court case has recently been launched against the city of Los Angeles, including its mayor and chief of police, accusing them of infringing the U.S. Constitution. The plaintiffs allege that the city administration is engaging in viewpoint discrimination, thus suppressing the rights of specific sections of the city. Liberty Counsel, the driving force behind the lawsuit, claims that the officials denied a peaceful assembly request submitted by Mayday USA, a ground-level organization campaigning against abortion, pornography, and human trafficking.

Interestingly, the indictment claims that the city, alongside Mayor Karen Bass and Police Chief Jim McDonnell, approved the equivalent permit for the LA Pride Parade ‘just days later’. The LA Pride Parade is known to promote perspectives that contradict those held by Mayday USA. This indicates, according to the lawsuit, an unambiguous differentiation in treatment concerning the approval of public assembly permits.

Liberty Counsel’s leader, Mat Staver, asserts that the city of Los Angeles does not hold the power to decide which groups are eligible for First Amendment rights of free speech or religious freedom. According to him, these rights are fundamental and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, including the right to unadulterated religious freedom.

Liberty Counsel believes the city’s actions are the equivalent of stifling the peaceful public expression of Christian viewpoints. As a result, they’ve taken up the role of defending these ministries. Staver said that this represent a direct affront to the essence of religious liberty and is thus intolerable.

He maintains that the city’s permitting method for public assemblies is in contradiction with First Amendment rights. Such an unconstitutional practice, in their view, serves only to inflict irrevocable damage upon religious liberty. Therefore, Los Angeles city officials are legally answerable to these charges.

Their legal team asserts that the city has acted outside of constitutional boundaries in their refusal to condone a permit for the peaceful assembly of the organizations. They highlight that ‘just days later’, the same officials approved the LA Pride Parade, an event in the identical location.

The proposed place for their gathering on May 31 was Hollywood Boulevard, a customary public arena. The crowd was planning to utilize the space for worship and public advocacy against abortion, pornography, and human trafficking. Not only did the city officials deny the permit, but they strive to throw a series of administrative obstacles and technical licensing stipulations in their path.

In stark contrast, the same officials did not hesitate to grant permission for events like the Thai New Year Songkran Festival or Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests in the same location. This discrepancy is part of the allegations raised by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit lobbies the court to bring an end to the city’s ‘unlawful permitting process’ through an injunction. They argue that this process infringes upon rights to free speech, religious practice, and equal protection. They see it as a direct violation of their rights that should not be permitted to continue.

May, marked as a ‘Mayday’ call for Christian revival, saw these rights advocates organizing events across multiple locations including LA, New York, Miami, Seattle, and Houston. Except for Los Angeles, all these events were allowed to proceed without issue, with Seattle being the sole exception in denying the organizers their preferred venue.

Los Angeles exceeded its constitutional limits by imposing a raft of requirements on the event organizers. For example, it insisted that the organizers must secure approval from at least 51 percent of Hollywood Boulevard’s business owners and vendors for Mayday’s expressive activity and speech. Additionally, they asked for an event without a stage and denied approval for reasonable times for the permit application.

For the plaintiffs, none of these demands are documented in the city’s codes. These restrictions appear to be arbitrary and designed to hinder the organizing and execution of the event.

To fortify their claims of viewpoint discrimination, their court submission cites a ruling from Shurtleff v. Boston from the U.S. Supreme Court. In that case, the court stated, ‘When the government does not speak for itself, it may not exclude speech based on religious viewpoint.’, marking this as ‘impermissible viewpoint discrimination.’.