Lawsuit should be dismissed

As promised, Jim Gilchrist and his Minuteman Project have filed a lawsuit against the Patriots Day Parade Assn. and other entities to try to get a judge to order them to be allowed into the March 4 parade -- or to order that La Playa and the Laguna Beach Peace Vigil be kicked out.

Gilchrist claims he’s defending the First Amendment and citizens’ guaranteed right to express opinions. He says that if La Playa -- which teaches English to mainly Spanish-speaking immigrants -- and the Peace Vigil, a group of mostly elderly women who line up at Main Beach on many Saturdays pressing their case against war, are allowed to be in the parade, then the Minutemen should be too.

This sounds reasonable, but there’s some background which Gilchrist and his supporters seem to be ignoring.

We understand that the Peace Vigil group was itself initially barred from the parade and asked to tone down its rhetoric to fit in with the generally upbeat tone of the parade. The Peace Vigil complied and was permitted to march.

Parade organizers made a similar request of the Minutemen, but the Minutemen said they would not comply with such a request, so they were told they could not participate.

Parade organizer Charlie Quilter defends that action as reasonable given that the Minutemen have marched repeatedly in Laguna Beach and that their presence has generated a police response. The city’s orderly and friendly Patriots Day Parade is no place for a group that generates not just controversy but the potential for violence.

It’s always a tossup what a judge will make of any claim, but we hope he or she agrees with Quilter.

The spectacle of this national, well-heeled organization going to court against two local groups made up mostly of elderly people trying to pursue humanitarian work says a lot about the Minutemen and what they are about.

It’s also telling that the suit was served first on La Playa, the Peace Vigil and the parade association.

The city can take care of itself, with its attorney on retainer -- if the Minutemen decide to take that battle on.

As for La Playa and the Peace Vigil, there’s a law in California that stops people from suing those they disagree with politically in order to shut them up. This type of suit is called a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP.

The Minutemen deserve to be slapped down.