POLITICS
Mayor Bans Outdoor Free Speech Expressive Events
In reaction to Reclaim Pride’s push against Franklin Graham, protests are out
BY ANDY HUMM
Physically distanced, you
can line up at Home Depot,
Trader Joe’s, or for a
soup kitchen, but Mayor
Bill de Blasio is asserting an emergency
power to ban all outdoor
First Amendment activity even if
people wear masks and follow distancing
guidelines.
When Reclaim Pride tried to
hold a press conference on Sunday,
May 3 outside Mount Sinai
Beth Israel on First Avenue at 16th
Street to condemn the embrace
of the anti-LGBTQ, anti-Muslim
Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s
Purse by the hospital, Mayor Bill
de Blasio, and Governor Andrew
Cuomo, a dozen physically distanced
members of Reclaim Pride
and Rise and Resist — all wearing
masks — were ordered to disperse
“immediately” under threat of arrest
by a police offi cer who over his
bullhorn said, “Gatherings of any
kind have been prohibited by the
governor and the mayor. This gathering
is unlawful.”
The distanced placard holders
did disperse, but the press conference
went forward — but not before
the police threatened to stop
it and to arrest some of the press
covering it. The only summons —
for criminal violation of “an emergency
measure by Mayor” — was
issued to Ann Northrop of Reclaim
Pride, one of the leaders of the action.
Civil rights attorney Norman
Siegel, who worked with Reclaim
Pride to secure their right to hold
the fi rst Queer Liberation March
last June, called the bust of the
press conference “extremely troubling”
and “an abuse of police power.”
“I watched it online,” Siegel said.
“People were wearing masks and
were at least six feet apart.”
He said elected offi cials have
press conferences — including
Cuomo, who does so without a
mask — and this is “selective enforcement.”
“We have to respect medical
guidelines,” Siegel said, “but
The NYPD issues its order to disperse to the Reclaim Pride and Rise and Resist demonstrators on May 3
despite their being masked and standing at least six feet apart.
Socially distanced Reclaim Pride demonstrated deemed in violation of mayoral policy on May 3.
we also have to respect the First
Amendment rights of New Yorkers.”
He is prepared to go to court to
protect this right. (Siegel’s May 5
letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio and
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea
is at tinyurl.com/y7b4jawd.)
The press conference was
planned when Reclaim Pride obtained
an April 21 internal memo
from Mount Sinai Beth Israel
president Dr. Jeremy Boal telling
staff that once Samaritan’s Purse
packed up its fi eld tents in Central
Park — something that Reclaim
Pride and Rise and Resist had previously
DONNA ACETO
ANDY HUMM
protested in the park — the
Christian fundamentalist group,
which excludes volunteers who will
not sign off on their anti-LGBTQ
“Statement of Faith,” would be providing
services at the re-opened
Beth Israel branch of Mount Sinai.
But just the threat of the press
conference and condemnations of
the continued relationship with the
bigoted organization by City Council
Speaker Corey Johnson, State
Senator Brad Hoylman, and Councilmember
Carlina Rivera, chair
of the Hospitals Committee, led
Mount Sinai to announce it would
end its collaboration with Samaritan’s
Purse within two weeks.
At the mayor’s press conference
on Monday, May 4, Police Commissioner
Dermot Shea said in
response to a question about the
crackdown, “You’re talking about
some of the values that we hold in
the highest regard in this country
and certainly this city: the right of
people to gather and the right of
free speech and the right of protest.
But now comes the bad news.
We’re in a pandemic and an executive
order has been issued and
these are not policies of the police
department, there are now laws
that have passed down through executive
order to keep people alive.
So while we greatly, greatly respect
the right of people to protest, there
should not be protests taking place
in the middle of a pandemic, gathering
outside and putting people at
risk.”
De Blasio added, “For people who
want to make their voices heard,
there are plenty of ways to do it
without gathering in person. The
question is always, whoever has
whatever cause they want to speak
to: ‘Are they interested in protecting
people’s lives?’ If they are, use
all the other tools you have to get
your point across but avoid anything
that might put other people
in harm’s way.”
Response to Shea and de Blasio’s
comments from activists was
blunt.
“It is criminal and disgusting
that the mayor would imply that
we don’t care about other people’s
lives,” Northrop said.
Siegel said, “The mayor and
police commissioner’s views with
regard to First Amendment peaceful
protest during a pandemic are
both alarming and constitutionally
wrong. The First Amendment
cannot be suspended at any time
— including in a pandemic. If the
government wants to regulate free
speech by requiring masks and
social distancing they can do that,
but banning peaceful protest is
unconstitutional. You can’t argue
that the First Amendment is not
➤ FIRST AMENDMENT, continued on p.5
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