UPDATE: Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez and the Democratic Party of Orange County released statements on Friday calling on the organizers of the Little Saigon Tet Parade to include everyone. For details, see below.
SANTA ANA – A coalition of gay and lesbian groups lost its bid in court Thursday to force Little Saigon Tet Parade organizers to include the group in this Sunday’s event.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Geoffrey T. Glass declined to grant an injunction requested by the Partnership of Viet Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Organizations.
The coalition’s leaders expressed disappointment but said they will attend the parade – both as spectators and as participants.
“We will be there. And we will celebrate with our Vietnamese family,” said Tuan Trong Le, co-founder of the Gay Vietnamese Alliance.
Although the coalition is not allowed to join as a group, individual members will walk with at least one other participating group, and they plan to carry signs thanking the community for its support, said LGBT organizer Natalie Newton.
Other LGBT members will be cheering from the sidelines during the parade that will march along Bolsa Avenue, beginning at 9 a.m.
Dina Nguyen, one of two lawyers who represented the parade organizers, said after the court hearing, “We respect everyone’s First Amendment rights.
“Sometimes there are tough decisions, and these decisions need to be made by the court,” said Nguyen, who also is a Garden Grove councilwoman.
Nguyen and Mark Rosen represented the Vietnamese Federation of Southern California, which is coordinating groups working to put on the parade.
The attorneys for the parade committee argued that organizers were within their rights to decide who should be in their event. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment allowed organizers of a privately run Irish parade in Boston to select whom to include or exclude from that event, Rosen wrote in opposing the injuction request.
“Popular or not, controversial or not, the First Amendment vests that decision in the parade organizers,” Rosen wrote.
The Tet parade is a celebration “to pay respect to the founding ancestors, paying respect to elders, educate youth about traditions, heritage and ceremonial celebration of the new year,” Rosen wrote. Organizers believe that LGBT “has a purpose and a theme that strays and varies from the theme of the Tet parade.”
Luan Tran, an attorney for the LGBT coalition, wrote in his application for a temporary restraining order that LGBT “seeks not only to promote justice and equity but to reduce stigma and associated mental trauma for LGBT persons.”
Participation in the parade is crucial, Tran said, “not to advance any particular political agenda, but to gently make the point that LGBT persons are and always have been part of the community.”
Tran argued that by accepting the LGBT’s application and entrance fee, they had entered into a contract with the group because the organizers’ guidelines had only one stipulation for participation – that it be “strictly limited to those that have properly registered in advance.”
The judge ruled that Tran’s contract argument wasn’t valid. “Simply filling out an application is not sufficient to create contractual rights,” Glass said. “There was no meeting of the minds. It was an application.”
The judge indicated he was governed by the Supreme Court case.
For years, Westminster spearheaded the event, but this year the city decided it could not afford to host the parade. Vietnamese American groups stepped up to put on the event and pay for it.
For the past three years, the city accepted the LGBT group’s participation. The Vietnamese American parade organizing committee did not.
“In a sense, my clients have already won because the issue of gay rights is now front and center,” said Luan Tran, an attorney for the LGBT coalition.
Ian Van Cong, a member of the LGBT group, said, “Even if we didn’t win in court, we won with the community.”
In the past week, support came from various quarters, including the Garden Grove Unified School District, which agreed to pull a school bus carrying school board members and students out of the parade.
On Friday, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana, said in an e-mail: “I will not be participating in the Tet parade this year. I’m aware that there is a conflict being worked out and hopefully the organizing committee can get this resolved soon so that all who would like to participate in the Tet festivities may do so.”
The Democratic Party of Orange County backed the LGBT group in a letter sent to organizers on Friday: “…it’s disappointing to learn that Sunday’s Little Saigon Tet Parade organizers-the Vietnamese American Federation of Southern California (VAFSC)-have decided to discriminate…”
Henry Vandermeir, chair of the local party, asked the parade organizers to reconsider their decision “given the fact that the Partnership of Viet Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Organizations has proudly participated in the parade since 2010 and represents an important part of our community.”
The group also has received the support of state Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana.
“He’s supportive of their efforts and will write a letter to the parade organizers encouraging them to include everyone,” Tammy Tran, Correa’s district director, said Thursday.
Other letters poured in from local and national organizations that focus on civil rights, including ACLU, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Lambda Legal, the Public Law Center and the API Equality-LA.
One of their key local supporters is the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California, which will allow some of the LGBT members to join them as guests on Sunday.
That student association is the sponsor of the popular Tet Festival, which begins today in Garden Grove Park.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7829 or rkopetman@ocregister.com
