Human Rights Campaign letter condemns Lubbock City Council for denying art trail funds

A week after the Lubbock City Council decided to deny the First Friday Art Trail a $30,000 grant, the Human Rights Campaign issued a letter condemning the council's decision and asking them to reconsider.

Last week, in a 5-2 vote, the council decided to deny Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts' FFAT a city grant funded through the hotel occupancy tax due to it promoting the "gay agenda" through LGBT workshops and drag shows.

The issue was brought forward by District 3 Councilman David Glasheen and was backed by Mayor Mark McBrayer and Councilman District 4 Councilman Brayden Rose. Councilwoman Christy Martinez-Garcia for District 1 voiced her opposition to denying the funds.

In a letter addressed to the city council, Cathryn Oakley, senior director for legal policy for HRC, stated that "it is imperative that the City Council be mindful that drag performances are constitutionally protected speech," citing a U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruling on the matter.

"Governments are, therefore, without power to restrict expression solely based on its content, including the ideas it conveys and the subject matter it addresses," reads the letter. "Likewise, restrictions based on a specific act or message of the speaker, a performer in this instance, is a more blatant violation of freedom of speech protections. To be clear, the vote to deny funding using the reasoning that drag performances may be a part of a publicly-funded event necessarily targets such performances based solely on their content. Drag performers, then, are specifically targeted because they have engaged in this type of speech and form of expression."

More: Mayor responds to Lubbock's concern about council slashing First Friday Art Trail funds

Oakley went on to say that another reason the council cited in denying funds was due to them viewing LGBT-focused art displays to be inappropriate, which she reiterates is discriminatory and unconstitutional.

She also reiterates the sentiment Martinez-Garcia said during the meeting — people have a choice on whether they attend FFAT, including parents choosing to bring their children to the events.

"The Court makes clear that parental rights encompass the ability to consent to exposing their children to forms of expression that may be considered inappropriate to others and that drag performances are no different than an individual’s taste in music or feelings toward certain types of comedic performances," reads the letter. "There is nothing inherently adult or obscene about drag performance."

Oakley noted in her letter over 400 pieces of anti-LGBT legislation around the nation were introduced this year and that the council's decision to defund the FFAT due to its hosting "LGBTQ+ inclusive events are a part of the organization’s programming only furthers that harm and can be seen as a part of this campaign to curtail the rights of LGBTQ+ people."

Closing out the letter, Oakley asks that the council reconsider the vote.

"We respectfully ask that FFAT be treated like any other group seeking public funds to host community events, with full recognition of constitutional protections on speech and expression, and that the Lubbock City Council reconsider its vote to deny such funding," reads the statement.

McBrayer, for his part, released a statement on Friday in response to growing criticism of the decision. The mayor indicated the council was working with stakeholders to find a solution. The full statement reads:

Thank you all for taking the time to express your concern over the City Council’s vote to not provide a grant to the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA) for the First Friday Art Trail (FFAT) this upcoming year. As you may be aware, the City of Lubbock, through the auspices of Civic Lubbock, Inc.’s (CLI) Cultural Arts Grant Awards program, supports approximately 30 different events annually in Lubbock. The money for these grants come from the Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT tax) the city collects on each hotel stay. So, it is a tax-payer funded program, and the City Council is responsible for approving each grant. 

I appreciate your commitment and enthusiasm towards LHUCA. I, like you, enjoy the FFAT and generally think it is worthy of support from our HOT tax. Importantly, not every cultural arts event that applies for the grant gets awarded, nor could the grant program provide substantial funds to all the events that happen within the city. Not all requests get funded for the full amount of the request, either. Choices regarding worthy recipients must be made.  CLI conducts the initial review and then presents their recommendations to the City Council for final approval. 

A common concern that many of you shared in your phone calls and email was that CLI and LHUCA were not made aware in advance that the vote to defund would occur and were not provided an opportunity to respond with additional information and specifics regarding LHUCA’s request and CLI’s recommendation.  City Staff and I have since reached out to representatives of CLI and LHUCA to allow them to respond, and they have done so by providing additional facts and specificity, which I believe may have impacted the Council’s analysis.  Although I cannot speak for anyone else on the City Council, with the additional information received, I’m hopeful we will come to an arrangement regarding funding the grant with LHUCA and FFAT for the coming year.  

With that, I simply ask that you give the City Council an opportunity to work through this in a way that provides support for the arts in Lubbock in a manner that is beneficial for our entire community. I appreciate your phone calls and emails. As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to me on any item that is of concern to you.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: HRC asks Lubbock City Council to reconsider First Friday Art Trail funds