EDGE: In D.C., Gays, ACLU Agree With Anti-Marriage Group on Free Speech

It’s not every day that GLBT equality advocates find themselves praised as “reasonable” by anti-gay groups. Then again, it’s not every day that GLBT equality advocates stand up for the right to free expression by people who wish to strip them of their on family rights.

The approval of marriage equality by the city government of Washington, D.C. had the expected result of anti-gay activists seeking to place the new law before voters. Legislation via ballot initiative has, after all, worked for anti-gay groups every single time it has been employed against GLBT family parity.

What was unexpected was that ads carried by city buses in D.C. would be defended by the same gay family equality groups whose cause was under assault by the ads in question. But that’s what happened, reported NBC Washington in a Dec. 29 article.

The article said that a Twitter posting from GLBT rights group Full Equality Now DC called for ads on the city’s Metro buses to be removed because the ads called for a referendum vote on the new ordinance that makes it legal for same-sex couples to wed in the District. The group also posted an open letter at its Web site–later removed and said to have been only a “draft”–calling for the ads to be taken down due to their “discriminatory” nature.

“Let the people vote on marriage,” the ads read. They were paid for by anti-gay group Stand For Marriage DC. But the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA), the ACLU, and other organizations sent a letter to the Metro to encourage them to keep the ads in place as a matter of respecting First Amendment rights.

“We are defending our own liberties” in standing up for the right of marriage opponents to express their views, noted Rick Rosendall, a spokesperson for GLAA. “We’re defending our own rights. To start carving away at America’s Bill of Rights is the absolute opposite of what we should be doing.”

Such a principled response from people wishing to see their family ties honored by the law was evidently expected by at least some of those who wish to take the newly gained family rights away. Said Stand for Marriage DC spokesperson Patrick Walker, “I wasn’t surprised at all” that the pro-marriage side defended the anti-marriage ads. “It’s reasonable and therefore reasonable thinking people would know that ’Hey it’s freedom of speech.’” [FULL STORY]