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The New York Civil Liberties Union today sued Suffolk County for records regarding advertisements placed on county buses, in conjunction with a controversy over the rejection of a local LGBT rights group’s attempt to place a bus advertisement expressing support for same-sex marriage. [Democratic Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy is a Defendant in the suit.]
On May 21, the county rejected a bus ad proposed by the Long Island LGBT Coalition stating
Explaining the denial in a newspaper article, County Attorney Christine Malafi said the county has a long-standing policy of not accepting political ads on its buses.
While the county rejected the LGBT group’s political ad, it previously accepted an ad from Birthright, an anti-abortion group. The NYCLU made multiple attempts to obtain Suffolk’s policy regarding advertisement guidelines as well as records of what ads have been accepted and rejected in the past, including filing a formal freedom of information request for the records in June. The County has thus far refused to turn over the records.
Andrea Callan, director of the NYCLU’s Suffolk County Chapter said:
The county can’t favor one group’s message over another’s. If it’s going to prohibit ads with political messages from being displayed on its buses, then it must reject all such ads.
The LGBT group spent $6,000 to produce the rejected ad. In a press report, a representative from Gateway Outdoor Advertising, which coordinates advertising on county buses, said he’d never before had the county deny an ad.
In a May 28 telephone conversation with an NYCLU attorney, Malafi implied that she had not seen the Birthright ad until it was already posted on county buses. She distinguished the two ads by stating that the Birthright’s does not include the term “abortion” while the LGBT group’s ad contained the word “marriage.”
Callan also said:
The county is treading in murky First Amendment waters if it is rejects paid bus advertisements based on the presence or absence of specific words. We need to learn more about county’s policies and practices in this area to try to understand why it rejected the LGBT Coalition’s ad.
The NYCLU’s lawsuit seeks documents related to Suffolk’s policies for non-county entities seeking to advertise on county buses, operating procedures regarding advertising on county property, and records of all ads the county has accepted or denied since May 1, 2007.
Lead counsel on the case is NYCLU Senior Staff Attorney and Upstate Litigation Coordinator Corey Stoughton.
To read the full complaint, the memo of law or the NYCLU’s original FOIL request, visit http://www.nyclu.org/news/nyclu-sues-suffolk-county-records-regarding-rejection-of-same-sex-marriage-ad.
Filed under: Action Alert!, activism, local, long island, Long Island Politics, News, politics, Same-Sex Marriage, social & economic justice Tagged: | aclu, lgbt, NYCLU, Suffolk County
The facts in your article are not quite correct. All charges were refunded and we even paid the printer for production.
LGBT may have spent $6,000, but we refunded every dime and paid the printer.
Craig,
Thank you for posting. This is a NYCLU press release. You may want to contact them directly about any corrections.
peace
Ian