Spencer Pride is accusing the Owen County Commissioners of targeting its annual Pride festival in an open letter released Friday.
Controversy arose about the ordinance changes after form letters surfaced describing the Spencer Pride Fest as inappropriate for children. The commissioners originally tried to pass them off as a petition from taxpayers complaining about costs.
Bullet b.12 of Section Six of the ordinance states, “Displaying any sexually explicit or suggestive materials, items, or images is prohibited. No vendor may sell or display any sexually explicit materials, items, or images on county grounds.”
Spencer Pride President Jonathan Balash says the vagueness throughout the ordinance will likely make it subject to lawsuits.
“It’s gonna be up to someone – [Owen County Commissioners President] Jeff Brothers, perhaps – to decide, based on his moral compass, what is or is not sexually suggestive. For us, that is a major issue, because many of them have expressed that even to identify as LGBTQ – that is overly sexual. So someone who has that as their belief is going to find everything that we do at the festival to somehow be tied into that really vague term ‘sexually suggestive.’”
Brothers said at this Monday’s Commissioners meeting that someone dressing “inappropriately” at a festival could be a danger to children.
“It’s a really bad decision for them to include this in here,” Balash continued. “And we feel this is the most discriminatory part of the ordinance and that it’s gonna be really used to help shut down the Pride Festival.”
But Balash says the ordinance will likely not have the desired effect, as the ordinance will probably end up hurting smaller events the most.
“They are impacting so many different organizations and events with these changes,” Balash says. “The irony is that the one event that they really want to shut down is the event that’s the strongest and most capable of continuing, even with these ordinances.”
The Spencer Downtown Event Coalition is meeting Monday to determine how it will respond to the proposal. That meeting is at 6 p.m. at the Tivoli Theatre.
Open Letter to Owen County Commissioners by Indiana Public Media News on Scribd
