Parade Organizers Say No To Minutemen

The Minuteman Project citizen patrol, known for its skirmishes over illegal immigration, is now in a skirmish over a Laguna Beach parade.

At issue is the 40th annual Patriots Day parade, a homespun event put on by a nonprofit group in Laguna.

The Minuteman Project applied this month to participate in the March 4 event through downtown Laguna but was rejected by parade organizers, who cited the 25-year-old parade bylaws that say, “No religious or political entries shall be permitted.”

The Minuteman entry “is obviously a political entry,” said Charles J. Quilter II, vice president of the Patriots Day Parade Assn. “This isn’t that kind of event. It’s got Brownies and Boy Scouts and Friends of the Library.”

But Minuteman founder James Gilchrist says it has more than that.

The retired accountant, who recently ran unsuccessfully for Congress, says a gay men’s choir, a peace group and a local center that runs a day laborer center are participating. They are just as political and potentially controversial as his group, he said.

His group’s parade entry was turned down “within an hour” after applying. It left him feeling “offended, insulted and really taken aback,” he said.

Gilchrist, who has appeared with supporters in Laguna Beach to protest a day laborer hiring center there, said his right to free speech was being violated.

Source: LA Times, Jan. 25, 2006

bh