ACLU of Indiana Is Suing the City of Loogootee over Location Rights Over PrideFest Events
Loogootee's PrideFest is Under Turmoil As Political Actions Attempt To Block the Event From Happening in A Newly Released Statement
The Loogootee City Council has been put under fire by the American Civil Liberties Union for unfairly denying organizers from hosting a PrideFest Event set to take place in downtown Loogootee in early September.
On Thursday, the ACLU stated that the Loogootee City Council has repeatedly blocked the event from being in the downtown square where the event was once held successfully last year.
The statement said in part, “The first Loogootee Pride Festival was successfully held in June 2023 at the Public Square, in the center of town. where numerous community events have been held over the years. About 200 people attended the 2023 festival, and organizers had no reason to suspect that the town’s leadership would not approve a permit for a festival in 2024.
Since submitting a new application for PrideFest 2024 in February, the organizers of PrideFest, Patoka Valley AIDS Community Action Group, have attended each subsequent Loogootee City Council meeting. The PrideFest application has been on the Council’s meeting agenda but Council members never discussed or voted on it. On June 10th, the Council passed the most recently revised ordinance setting up numerous roadblocks to PrideFest. Another event, Summer Fest, is scheduled to be held in the Public Square next week, apparently without the event organizers even applying for a permit.”
In a separate statement from Evansville ACLU Director, Ken Falk, he said in part to the statement defending the organizers and allowing them the free right to host their event freely under the First Amendment.
Falk said at the bottom of the statement which you can find here, “The City of Loogootee’s revocation of its November 2023 permission to hold PrideFest 2024 and its actions since that time violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The latest city special events ordinance is unconstitutional in many ways. It, and the actions of the City Council, clearly indicate that Councilmembers are trying to deny our plaintiffs the ability to hold their event because they disagree with a celebration of the LGBTQ community.”
This is not the first time the organizers of PrideFest, Timothy and Tracy Brown-Salsman, have issued public statements against the city of Loogootee, but this is one of their more radical steps to host the event that took the two men and their organization over seven years to host.
As mentioned, 2023 was when the city host the town’s first PrideFest ever, but now in 2024, the event is under question as legal mitigations against the city are occurring as the Union has sued the city for an unknown amount.
It is also unclear if this case will go to court and the City of Loogootee has denied our request for comment.
This as PrideFest in Loogootee is being put under fire by politics.