Opinion ID: 1235178
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether Philly Pride had a Right to Exclude

Text: It has been Philly Pride's position that because it had a city permit to conduct OutFest, it had a correlative right to exclude from the OutFest event those who hold contrary, indeed antagonistic, viewpoints. There is language in the District Court's opinion that supports that position. Thus, for example, the Court stated, [o]nce the City issued a permit to Philly Pride for OutFest, it was empowered to enforce the permit by excluding persons expressing contrary messages. Startzell, 2007 WL 172400, at . The authorities cited by the District Court do not support that broad proposition. [7] Nor does the Supreme Court opinion relied on by all parties. My colleague in his concurrence suggests that we believe that the police in effect issued an exclusive permit to the OutFest supporters.... As we make clear hereafter, that is not the holding of this opinion. In Hurley v. Irish-Am. Gay, Lesbian, & Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U.S. 557, 115 S.Ct. 2338, 132 L.Ed.2d 487 (1995), the Massachusetts state courts had interpreted the state's public accommodation law to require the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council, a private group that annually organized the Boston St. Patrick's Day parade, to include among the marchers a contingent from an organization of openly gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals of Irish heritage (GLIB). The Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, held that the state Supreme Judicial Court's decision violated the parade organizers' First Amendment right of autonomy, the right to control one's own speech. The Court held that the First Amendment protected the Council's decision to exclude a message it did not like from the communication it chose to make.... Id. at 574, 115 S.Ct. 2338. The Court held that to compel the organizers of the parade to include GLIB, or any other group that expressed a message the organizers did not agree with, would be essentially requiring [them] to alter the expressive content of their parade. Id. at 572-73, 115 S.Ct. 2338. Such a requirement would violate the fundamental rule of protection under the First Amendment, that a speaker has the autonomy to choose the content of his own message. Id. at 573, 115 S.Ct. 2338. Hurley does not control the case before us. The Hurley Court disallowed compelled, participatory speech, noting that like a composer, the [parade organizers] select[ ] the expressive units of the parade from potential participants, and though the score may not produce a particularized message, each contingent's expression in [their] eyes comports with what merits celebration on that day. Id. at 574, 115 S.Ct. 2338. Hurley is as distinguishable from the situation presented here as was the decision in Turner, 512 U.S. at 622, 114 S.Ct. 2445, from Hurley. As the Hurley Court noted, Turner upheld regulations that required cable operators to set aside channels for designated broadcast signals because cable had long served as a conduit for broadcast signals, and there was little risk that cable viewers would assume that the cable operator endorsed the ideas or messages carried on the broadcast stations. Hurley, 515 U.S. at 575-76, 115 S.Ct. 2338. The situation in Hurley would be comparable to that presented here if Repent America had sought a stage area or a vendor booth, because such participation in OutFest would likely be perceived as having resulted from [Philly Pride's] customary determination about a unit admitted to [participate in OutFest's activities], that its message was worthy of presentation and quite possibly of support as well. Id. at 575, 115 S.Ct. 2338. However, that is not the issue in this case. Instead, the question presented is whether Hurley authorizes exclusion of Appellants from attending OutFest, a private-sponsored event in a public forum that was free and open to the general public. We hold that it does not. Although the Hurley parade took place on a public thoroughfare, nothing in the opinion suggests that GLIB could be excluded from the streets after the parade had passed. To the contrary, the Court noted that GLIB was free to seek its own parade permit. Id. at 578, 115 S.Ct. 2338. There is no basis to read Hurley as circumscribing the long line of authority upholding free access by the general public to street festivals and other events held in traditional public fora. In Hague v. C.I.O., 307 U.S. 496, 515, 59 S.Ct. 954, 83 L.Ed. 1423 (1939), Justice Owen J. Roberts wrote, streets and parks have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions. That principle has been reiterated in case after case, see, e.g., Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 481, 108 S.Ct. 2495, 101 L.Ed.2d 420 (1988); Perry, 460 U.S. at 45, 103 S.Ct. 948; United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171, 177, 103 S.Ct. 1702, 75 L.Ed.2d 736 (1983), and neither the grant of a permit nor anything in Hurley alters that still viable principle. Those of our sister circuits that have had occasion to consider the issue agree. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that a municipal policy that allowed permit-holders sponsoring an event in a public forum to exclude individuals who express messages with which the permit-holder disagrees was inconsistent with the First Amendment. See Gathright v. City of Portland, 439 F.3d 573, 575-76 (9th Cir.2006). The court held that the city could not enjoin an evangelical Christian from wearing signs or passing out pamphlets at a permitted event in a public location. It rejected the city's argument that Hurley allowed such exclusion, noting that the plaintiff sought only to be heard, not to have his speech included or possibly confused with another's.... Id. at 578. The court held that the city's policy was not a reasonable time, place, or manner regulation of public space, because  even assuming it was content neutral and was supported by a significant government interest  the policy of allowing permittees unfettered discretion to exclude private citizens on any (or no) basis is not narrowly tailored to the City's legitimate interest in protecting its permittees' right under Hurley.  Id. at 577. Similarly, in Parks v. City of Columbus, 395 F.3d 643 (6th Cir.2005), the court held that the city could not prevent plaintiff, who attended a permitted Arts Festival, from walking through the Festival grounds wearing a sign bearing a religious message. The court distinguished Hurley on the basis that Parks, like Gathright, d[id] not seek inclusion in the speech of another group ... [but] was merely another attendee of a permitted event open to the public, in a traditional public forum. Id. at 651; see also Mahoney v. Babbitt, 105 F.3d 1452, 1456 (D.C.Cir.1997) (refusing to extend Hurley to allow parade organizers to exclude people wishing to stand along parade route holding protest signs); cf. Wickersham v. City of Columbia, 481 F.3d 591, 600 (8th Cir.2007) (reasoning that Hurley did not apply to state actor who organized air show where it has not shown that its message was dependent upon the composition of the crowd at the air show or that appellants' signs and leaflets were likely to be identified with it). As the court stated in Parks, [8] Parks only sought to exercise his First Amendment rights on streets which remained a traditional public forum notwithstanding the special permit that was issued to the Arts Council. Id. at 652. The city cannot claim that one's constitutionally protected rights disappear [where] a private party is hosting an event that remained free and open to the public. Id. The court then proceeded to conduct a traditional public forum analysis to hold that Parks' removal from the permitted area was an unconstitutional content-based restriction, because he was peacefully present at the Arts Festival but was asked to leave for no other reason than that the event sponsor wanted him removed. Id. at 654-55. We agree with this line of cases. It follows that the District Court erred in extending Hurley to allow Philly Pride to exclude Appellants from the public streets occupied by OutFest. Appellants were dissenting speakers on the Philadelphia streets and sidewalks where OutFest took place. There was no danger of confusion that Appellants' speech would be confused with the message intended by Philly Pride. See Mahoney, 105 F.3d at 1456-57. Thus, Appellants were not infringing on Philly Pride's fundamental right under the First Amendment to have the autonomy to choose the content of [its] own message. Hurley, 515 U.S. at 573, 115 S.Ct. 2338. Furthermore, like the Arts Festival in Parks, OutFest took place in the streets and sidewalks of Philadelphia, an undisputed quintessential public forum. The issuance of a permit to use this public forum does not transform its status as a public forum. Parks, 395 F.3d at 652; see also Grace, 461 U.S. at 180, 103 S.Ct. 1702 (stating that government may not by its own ipse dixit destroy the `public forum' status of streets and parks which have historically been public forums) (citation and internal quotations omitted). In places which by long tradition or by government fiat have been devoted to assembly and debate, the rights of the State to limit expressive activity are sharply circumscribed. Perry, 460 U.S. at 45, 103 S.Ct. 948; see also Frisby, 487 U.S. at 480, 108 S.Ct. 2495 (noting that public streets and sidewalks have been used for public assembly and debate, the hallmarks of a traditional public forum). In such traditional public fora the state may not prohibit all communicative activity. Perry, 460 U.S. at 45, 103 S.Ct. 948. Indeed, [s]treets, sidewalks, parks, and other similar public places are so historically associated with the exercise of First Amendment rights that access to them for the purpose of exercising such rights cannot constitutionally be denied broadly and absolutely. Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 460, 100 S.Ct. 2286, 65 L.Ed.2d 263 (1980) (citations and internal quotations omitted).