Anchorage Mayor Faces Legal Action
for Pulling Gay-pride Display
The Alaska Civil Liberties Union has decided to take legal action against the city of Anchorage after Mayor George Wuerch ordered the removal of a gay-pride display at the Z. J. Loussac Public Library June 5, the day after it was installed. June Pinnell-Stephens of the Fairbanks–North Star Borough Public Library confirmed to American Libraries that the AkCLU made the decision to launch a free-speech suit at its June 7 meeting.
In justifying his order, Wuerch cited the library’s exhibit policy, which allows the removal of a display that could trigger “substantial disruptions or material interference with primary library business” or takes an advocacy position. The exhibit features posters and a rainbow-colored “Celebrate Diversity” banner, but no sexually explicit images.
Wuerch reaffirmed his decision June 7 after having met with sponsors of the exhibit, saying in the June 8 Anchorage Daily News, “There’s nothing wrong with advocacy, as long as it doesn’t take place in a public facility.” He added that the library’s exhibit policy was being reviewed, and that in the interim only materials owned by the library could be displayed.
One of the exhibit’s sponsors, Rev. Jan Richardson of the Lamb of God Metropolitan Community Church, told the News June 8 that she was “deeply disappointed” by the mayor’s decision and that Wuerch was “oppressed in his own closet of fear.”
Wuerch made headlines in 2000 when he fired Library Director Moe McGee the day before his inauguration and slashed the library’s budget by 21% in December.
Posted June 11, 2001.
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