We Have A Michigan Avenue Permit!

Due to a series of efforts over the last few months, for the first time since the beginning of the Iraq invasion and the hundreds of arrests made by the Chicago Police that night, a legal permit has been won by anti-war forces to march on Michigan Avenue, the city's busiest street and the scene of those illegal, mass arrests.*

Over the past few years, while many applauded mass protests in the major thoroughfares of foreign capitals around the globe, Chicago's political leaders have steadfastly refused the right of oppositional forces to similarly exercise those rights in our downtown area. Meanwhile, they've had no problem giving those same rights to business/political forces it favors, such as the St. Jude’s Police League and its event each May, and the Walt Disney Corporation and Greater North Michigan Avenue Association and their annual "Festival of Lights" parade at the start of the holiday shopping season. For almost three years now we have unsuccessfully fought this unconstitutional, content-based denial of our free speech rights -- until this past week.

So as to emphasize that a rejection of our permit application this year would be one based upon the content of our speech, rather than logistical considerations, our application mimicked the assembly time and route of the "Festival of Lights" parade. Last Tuesday the City of Chicago predictably rejected our permit application.

Under Chicago's permit ordinance, the City is required to offer a venue with "comparable public visibility" for permit applications which it rejects. In the past, the alternative venues offered by the City have been anything but "comparable," shunting us down deserted streets with little audience for our anti-war messages.

Last year we took the City to federal court over this issue. Unfortunately, we had the bad luck to draw a judge, William J. Hibbler, who worked for Richard M. Daley when the two of them were in the Cook County States Attorney’s Office. Hibbler ruled summarily against our appeal for an emergency injunction against the City.

When we announced that we would instead have a press conference on the sidewalk at what had been the prospective site of our march, police told Alderman Joe Moore that we would be arrested if we attempted to hold such a press conference. Four people were arrested in the vicinity of the press conference, which was summarily shut down by Chicago police.**

As noted above, this year we applied again for a permit, fully expecting to be rejected. To strengthen our hand in court for what we believed would be the inevitable appeal, Chicago Independent Media filmmaker Jon Groot helped us document this year's Festival of Lights parade, attempting to interview several ranking police officers on the scene about how the City rolls out the red carpet for people and messages that it approves of. Following advice from the Guild and the Chicago chapter of the ACLU, we also filed Freedom of Information Act applications for information about the permit applications and approvals for that event. The City was amply on notice that we were prepared to fight them on the issue even before our permit application was filed.

We Won

On Tuesday the City rejected our permit application, but to our pleasant surprise, offered us an alternative which truly is comparable to our original application. They offered, and we accepted,*** the following:

1. Assemble at 6 PM at the Ogden Elementary School parking lot, 24 W. Walton (930 N., at State Street).

2. Set off at 7 PM, east on Walton Avenue in the street to Michigan Avenue. South on Michigan Avenue in the southbound lanes of the street to Upper Wacker Drive. West on Upper Wacker Drive to Clark in the westbound lanes. Southbound on Clark Street to Daley Plaza, arriving approximately 8 PM.

The assembly time and set off time are an hour later than we requested, so this isn't ideal, but I think we can live with it. GLN’s annual Matthew Shepard Rally and March each October assembles at 8 PM, and that late start time doesn't hurt our attendance. The kick off of the "family friendly" Festival of Lights Parade is more than an hour after twilight, whereas the kick off for our event is a half hour after twilight, and our assembly time is right at sunset.

As we get more information about plans for neighborhood feeder marches, figuring out transportation and coordination between the various events will be an important matter for all of us to consider.

Andy Thayer
Gay Liberation Network
LGBTliberation (at) aol.com
773-209-1187

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

*All of the hundreds of charges against the anti-war demonstrators were dismissed in a manner indicative of innocence, according to attorneys at the National Lawyers Guild. The deprivation of rights, injuries and property damage caused by Chicago Police is the subject of an on-going lawsuit spearheaded by the Guild.

** Charges were dismissed against one of the arrestees. Another arrestee, Pat Vogel, the mother of a soldier who has been stationed in Mosul, recently was found innocent of disorderly conduct in a trial defended by National Lawyers Guild attorney Melinda Power. Disorderly conduct charges are still pending against Brad Lyttle and Andy Thayer; Guild attorney Charles Nissim Sabat is challenging the constitutionality of the City's disorderly conduct ordinance in a hearing that will be held at 9 am, Friday, February 3rd in the Judge Ballard's courtroom on the third floor of the new court building at 555 W. Harrison Street (near the "Clinton" Blue Line "el" stop). For attempting to speak at the press conference, in a separate administrative hearing Thayer was found guilty of violating the City’s permit ordinance; with the help of Guild attorney Jeff Frank, he is appealing the conviction and $775 fine in state court.

*** Under the law, we had five days to respond to their offer or we would have nothing. Facing this deadline, yet not knowing who else was on our Coordination/Logistics Committee as the sign up lists had not been distributed, I phoned several people from our meetings to get their input on this decision.