Nine anti-gay preachers who were
arrested on Saturday, September 1 protesting New Orleans' 41st
annual gay mardi gras Southern Decadence plan to sue the city.
The protesters carried signs which read
“Homo Sex Is Sin” and “Homo Sex Is A Threat To National
Security.”
Police arrested 8 men on suspicion of
aggressive solicitation.
The ordinance under which they were
arrested, approved in October, prohibits “any person or group of
persons to loiter or congregate on Bourbon Street for the purpose of
disseminating any social, political or religious message between the
hours of sunset and sunrise.”
A ninth man, Justin Craft, 31,
allegedly punched an officer when the officer attempted to confiscate
his bullhorn. Craft was arrested on suspicion of battery, resisting
an officer and interfering with a law enforcement investigation,
Nola.com
reported.
The men claim the previously unenforced
ordinance is unconstitutional, Religious
News Service reported.
The ordinance's sponsor, City
Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, said the city had a legitimate
interest in protecting the safety of people visiting Bourbon Street,
a huge tourism draw for the city.
“This is really an issue of trying to
protect public safety,” she said.