The Minutemen Hit the Beach

January 25, 2006

Laguna Beach tradition becomes battleground in immigration debate

By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, January 24, 2006

(01-24) 00:07 PST Laguna Beach, Calif. (AP) —

For 40 years, this quaint city overlooking the Pacific has united around its annual Patriots’ Day Parade, a celebration of school marching bands, charities, civic groups and military personnel.

This year, however, the small-town tradition has become an unlikely battlefield in the national debate over illegal immigration.

The nonprofit group that runs the parade recently rejected a float sponsored by the Minuteman Project, a self-styled border patrol run by illegal immigration opponent Jim Gilchrist. Now, his group is threatening legal action on free-speech and discrimination grounds and has gone to the airwaves to criticize the liberal city and its parade.

Despite a stream of e-mails and phone calls from Minuteman supporters, however, the parade committee reaffirmed their position in a three-hour meeting late Monday and voted unanimously to ban the Minuteman Project on political grounds.

“This is utter nonsense. It’s taken on a life of its own,” said Charles J. Quilter II, association vice president and a retired Marine colonel. “We’re just trying to do the right thing for a small-town parade.”

The vote sets the stage for a legal showdown in a controversy has shaken Laguna Beach, a bohemian town of 24,000 tucked into coastal hills that’s best-known for its vibrant arts scene, ocean vistas, laid-back atmosphere and prominent gay population.

For the rest of the article, see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/01/23/state/n185029S65.DTL&type=printable