After anti-LGBTQ+ rally, questions linger about Seattle’s response

In the aftermath, Seattle elected officials, political candidates and LGBTQ+ community members are searching for answers as to why it unfolded the way it did — and if there are ways to avoid repeating it.  

Mayday USA, a five-city tour featuring evangelical Christian preachers and musical acts, held its “Don’t Mess With Our Kids” event on Saturday, May 24 in Cal Anderson Park in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.  

Inspired by a similar movement in Peru, Mayday USA’s event had an anti-trans, anti-abortion message. A press release for the event said the group stands for “the sanctity of human life, the sacrality of biological gender.” 

The group initially applied to hold its event Downtown near Pike Place Market. The city denied the application because there was not “ample space to safely facilitate the expected number of attendees while also maintaining public access.”  

After the city recommended that the group ask the Department of Parks and Recreation for possible alternative locations, Mayday USA applied to hold the event at Cal Anderson. A mayor’s office spokesperson replied that “as the park was available and met the size and logistical needs for the event requested, the permit was granted.”  

Capitol Hill is Seattle’s historically queer neighborhood, and Cal Anderson Park is named after the Washington State Legislature’s first openly gay member. Seattle’s LGBTQ+ commission called it “sacred ground for 2SLGBTQIA+ Seattleites.” The Mayday USA event drew a large counterprotest under the banner “Keep Your Bibles Off Our Bodies,” along with a large police presence.  

Police alleged that counterprotesters threw water bottles and other items at officers and Mayday USA attendees, leading to 23 arrests. Counterprotesters alleged it was police who escalated the situation, using pepper spray and batons on protesters. Nobody from the Mayday USA group was arrested. 

That evening, Mayor Bruce Harrell released a statement decrying Mayday USA for antagonizing Seattle’s queer community.  

“Seattle is proud of our reputation as a welcoming, inclusive city for LGBTQ+ communities, and we stand with our trans neighbors when they face bigotry and injustice,” he said. “Today’s far-right rally was held here for this very reason – to provoke a reaction by promoting beliefs that are inherently opposed to our city’s values, in the heart of Seattle’s most prominent LGBTQ+ neighborhood.” 

In response to Harrell’s statement, Mayday USA organizers held a second rally at City Hall calling on the mayor to apologize or resign and accusing Harrell of attempting to “limit the freedom of Christian worship.” 

Once again, counterprotesters showed up, and SPD arrested eight of them.  

After Saturday’s event, Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck called the event organizers “far-right, anti-trans extremists who attempted to intimidate our community.” She continued, writing “While I respect First Amendment rights, we must also acknowledge the harm caused when hate groups are able to invade spaces meant to celebrate our community’s vulnerable populations and lift up their contributions to our city.” 

Rinck said she will be working to get answers to “prevent this from happening again.” 

In his statement, Harrell said that “While there are broad First Amendment requirements around permitting events under free speech protections, I am directing the Parks Department to review all of the circumstances of this application to understand whether there were legal location alternatives or other adjustments that could have been pursued.” 

Seattle’s LGBTQ+ Commission released a statement condemning the event, saying that the “violent police response toward counter-protesters only deepens longstanding concerns about disproportionate treatment and the misuse of public space to spread hate.” The commission called for a full investigation into SPD’s actions, a review of the permitting process and “meaningful community-centered reform in public safety.”

Seattle cannot legally bar a group from holding an event based on its beliefs. The Constitutional rights of free speech and free assembly make that crystal-clear, and the Seattle Municipal Code regulating events permitting affirms it. The municipal code states that “The terms and conditions of a permit (including providing insurance and/or security deposit) shall not infringe upon rights of petition, assembly, or free expression protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and/or Article I, Sections 3, 4 and 5 of the Washington Constitution.” 

The city’s parks permit ordinance does give the Parks Superintendent authority to impose conditions on a permit to “protect the health, safety and welfare of the public and/or the park; to avoid or limit unnecessary interference with other uses or users of the park.” But the only remedy the ordinance provides to protect parks is for the Superintendent to require the event organizer to acquire additional insurance, execute an indemnity agreement and/or provide a security deposit.  

When the city proposed the events permitting ordinance in 1987, the ACLU of Washington took issue with the provisions allowing additional financial guarantees from applicants, cautioning that they could interfere with citizens’ constitutionally protected activities.  

The 2001 ordinance creating Seattle’s Special Events Committee appears to give more leeway to city officials to modify an organization’s event request. As reported by Publicola, the ordinance gives the Special Events Committee authority to make decisions about the “time, place and manner of the event” in consideration of crowd control, traffic control and security. It continues: “Conditions shall be based upon projected impacts on public safety, public places and public services, but shall not be based upon the programming content of the event or message that the proposed event may convey.” 

Cascade PBS asked the mayor’s office if those provisions would allow the city to move an event like Mayday USA’s to a different location that might not lead to as much conflict. A spokesperson provided a statement from the City Attorney's Office: "There are local, state, and constitutional considerations in evaluating the response for particular events in Seattle. The City is acting consistent with the law and constitution in its permitting decisions."

The spokesperson also said that the Mayday USA event was permitted through the Parks process, not the Special Events Committee, thus the 2001 ordinance did not apply in that case. 

Erin Carr, an assistant professor at Seattle University School of Law, said that both the U.S. Constitution and Seattle’s municipal code leave room for “reasonable time, place and manner restrictions” that serve substantial public interest. Furthermore, she argued that free speech principles and First Amendment protections would not be compromised if the city makes “reasonable, viewpoint-neutral decisions to limit the location where certain speech activities can take place in order to preserve public safety.” 

“The First Amendment does not require city governments to permit expressive activity that could compromise public safety,” Carr explained. “Anticipating the possibility that an anti-LGBTQ+ event held in a public space celebrating the state’s first openly gay elected official could undermine community safety is not unreasonable, and suggests the need for sensible restrictions to ensure that opportunities to engage in free speech are supported without needlessly creating hostile, potentially dangerous situations.”

It’s not a purely hypothetical question. Another evangelical group has already secured a permit for a similar event in Cal Anderson on Aug. 30. In response, Elayne Wylie, former co-director of the Gender Justice League, launched a petition calling on the city to relocate the event to Magnuson Park in northeast Seattle. 

This story has been updated with additional comment from the mayor's office.