Recently there was some controversy about a group of nazis disrupting a Pride parade in Detroit by staging their own march, while escorted by police. All debates aside (note the forum), I’m confused about how this happens. Doesn’t whatever LGBT organization organizes Detroit’s Pride march apply for and receive some sort of permit? And while I understand that the city might not legally be able to deny a similar permit to a group of nazis based solely on their views, surely they don’t have to grant them a permit for the same streets at the same time, right? And if the nazis insist on marching down a street that’s currently closed for a parade, without a permit of their own, can’t they be arrested? Did the Detroit police department simply choose not to exercise that option? Or am I misunderstanding how the law works in this case?
From what I was able to find online, it appears that the government can legally require permits for parades and rallies (at least if they’re issued in a content-neutral way):
After doing an online search on this it appears the part bolded above is not accurate. My reading of the coverage in Newsweek indicates the Nazis were simply in attendance at the parade with everyone else. The police escort appears to be for their protection. I see nothing to show they were staging their own march.
I first heard about it from a YouTube video objecting to some of the ways people have responded to the incident. But here’s one of the articles I found when I searched for info on what had happened:
Essentially, the Nazis were protesters. Antifa was also there. The Nazis wanted to turn this into Charlottesville II. The Detroit police kept it under control. People have now claimed the DPD where either escorting the Nazis or marching with them. Both are untrue.
What were the Nazis actually doing? Like, do you generally need a permit to “march,” if your “march” consists only of ordinary activities like walking down the sidewalk while obeying crosswalk signals? You need a permit to hold a parade because shutting down the street and sending floats down the center is normally illegal.
I read that opinion piece. I took the author’s use of “free speech” to mean the police could not legally have prevented the nazis from marching (because usually that’s what “free speech” in America means - speech protected from government interference). I am questioning, though, whether that’s factually accurate, because so far as I can tell, a content-neutral “they have a permit and you don’t, so get lost” is actually constitutional.
I’m not trying to debate what the police did or didn’t do, but rather to ask what they legally could have done. Some of the online conversation (including that piece) seems to suggest the police didn’t have much choice, because it’s “free speech”. I at least found one example of a Supreme Court case that seems to suggest otherwise. But, I’m not a lawyer, and maybe I have it wrong.
I suspect you’d need a permit to obstruct a street, whether or not floats were involved. But if their “marching” was in fact entirely on sidewalks and legal crossings, maybe that explains it. I’ve only been able to find small snipets of video, so I don’t know if that’s the case.
The article said that there were approximately 15 people in the Nazi “march.” IMHO, it would seem rather odd to require 15 people to get a permit to show up and walk along with another demonstration in protest.
I realize that we could get into a debate about how if 100 people would require a permit, but 15 would not, then how about 30, 50, or 70. Further, the article doesn’t mention if the Nazi group actually used the public streets, but even if it did, they were closed anyways for the Pride parade.
I guess I just have a problem if the government was able to tell 15 people who showed up at an event to protest that it had to “go home” because it didn’t have a permit. I mean, I could fit 15 people over for dinner. That seems an overburdensome intrusion on free speech.
In the UK, under The Riot Act (1715 and repealed in 1973) it was established that a group of more than twelve people who were “unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously assembled together” failed to disperse within one hour [of the RA being read], then anyone remaining gathered was guilty of a felony without benefit of clergy, punishable by death.
Maybe the death penalty (especially "without benefit of clergy) would be coming it a bit strong, even for Nazis, but it might establish that 12 is a sufficient number of people.
Police can break up disruptive groups far smaller than 15 people, though. It’s silly to call it freedom of speech for Nazis but not for teens just being disruptive.
Every year at our Pride Parade there are the usual religious protestors on street corners with signs and bullhorns. The last few years I’ve noticed an additional contingent that tends to “march” along with the parade on the sidewalks or more commonly on the street near the sidewalks b/c our Pride Parade rocks and the sidewalks the entire route are jam packed. Usually there is a police presence near/around them as they protest along the parade route but you’d have to really twist yourself around to depict it as the police were marching with the protestors in support. They are there, protecting both the parade participants, spectators, and protestors because as you can imagine the religious protestors presence and actions are not exactly ignored or quietly welcomed. It reminds me of the Detroit situation, which saddens me greatly, but my immediate assumption despite attempts to spin it otherwise, is the police were doing their jobs in providing protection for everyone in a very volatile situation.
By the way, one of my favorite counter-protests is that groups now counter protest by showing up in angel garb with large wings. They’ll move along the parade route and stand directly in front of any religious protest group, raise their wings, and completely obscure the religious protestors from view. It is beautiful, peaceful, and an elegant response to their hate.
Define “disruptive.” It is not illegal to congregate in groups of 15. If police were to try to disband a group of 15 people (who are not breaking the law, advocating violence or yelling threats) simply because they disagree with their beliefs, then we no longer have freedom of speech.
I am always dismayed in these threads when people approve of tactics like this, including the one above where we block views of people at a protest. That sounds fun and nice to show those people that we hate how we will marginalize them, but once you do that, the die has been cast and next it will be you who these tactics are used against. I wish people would stop trying to shout down voices. Argue? Absolutely! Attempt to exclude? Absolutely not.
I’ll admit ignorance to the law in this area. Let’s say I get on a soap box in a public park and give an eloquent speech about how the mopery law should be repealed. In my attempt to do so another guy shows up and gives his own speech, talking over me, about how the mopery laws are needed for the safety of the public. There are no threats of violence or any of the exceptions to the First Amendment present.
Who is in the wrong? So, if I bring people to stand near him (but not near enough that he reasonably fears for his safety) to drown out his voice is that okay? What if he does the same to me?
At some point in this tit for tat, there may be 20 people all talking over each other and no message getting out, and tempers rising. But at the same time, we cannot mandate that everyone else listen in respectful silence while I drone on about repealing the mopery law.
Suffice it to say, the US never had such a law. (Or, I doubt that such a law stood up against the Bill of Rights for very long if somehow it was passed.)