By Ken Broder, All Gov
The city of Westminster is throwing a party and everyone is welcome . . . unless you’re gay.
The Westminster City Council on Wednesday will consider whether to grant a permit for the 2014 Tet parade to organizers who have said they won’t allow Viet Rainbow of Orange County to march. | VROC-Viet Rainbow of Orange County
Technically, the Orange County town with a heavy Vietnamese-American population isn’t throwing the party. It is just issuing the permit for the annual Lunar New Year (Tet) parade to be held in February. The city used to pay for the event and, although a few religious groups objected to the guest list in 2010 and dropped out, it ran smoothly through Little Saigon.
But the city turned the popular event over to the Vietnamese American Federation of Southern California a couple years ago for financial reasons and the federation doesn’t want any homosexual shenanigans at their festive occasion.
The city council felt compelled by the legal advice it received, and voted unanimously last week to give parade organizers a permit despite the ban on participation by gays. The event is considered private, although the public attends, and the host’s right to discriminate is a constitutional free-speech issue.
Viet Rainbow of Orange County has tried unsuccessfully for more than a year to get the Federation to change its policy. Cathy Lam, spokeswoman of Parents of Rainbow Children, told the Los Angeles Times, “This walk in the parade is not just about LGBT rights. It is neither about freedom of choices nor freedom of speech, but it is about our freedom from oppression, our freedom to be ourselves with dignity.”
Read the full story by Ken Broder from All Gov.
