The Police Chief shall grant a permit to sponsor, promote or conduct a mass outdoor gathering to be attended by two hundred (200) or more persons upon written application therefore unless it appears to the Police Chief within a reasonable certainty that such gathering *97 will unreasonably endanger the public health or public safety.
Civil liberties, as guaranteed by the Constitution, imply the existence of an organized society maintaining public order without which liberty itself would be lost in the excesses of unrestrained abuses. The authority of a municipality to impose regulations in order to assure the safety and convenience of the people in the use of public highways has never been regarded as inconsistent with civil liberties but rather as one of the means of safeguarding the good order upon which they ultimately depend. The control of travel on the streets of cities is the most familiar illustration of this recognition of social need. Where a restriction of the use of highways in that relation is designed to promote the public convenience in the interest of all, it cannot be disregarded by the attempted exercise of some civil right which in other circumstances would be entitled to protection. One would not be justified in ignoring the familiar red traffic light because he thought it his religious duty to disobey the municipal command or sought by that means to direct public attention to an announcement of his opinions. As regulation of the use of the streets for parades and processions is a traditional exercise of control by local government, the question in a particular case is whether that control is exerted so as not to deny or unwarrantedly abridge the right of assembly and the opportunities for the communication of thought and the discussion of public questions immemorially associated with resort to public places.
[A]lthough plaintiffs have a First Amendment right to parade on behalf of gay and lesbian rights, they do not have a right to demand that the City ... sponsor that right by paying their parade permit fees because it sponsors other speech-related activities. If defendants can adequately show that the parades which they have sponsored and for which they have paid the permit fees are reasonably related to the government function which the sponsoring department of the city government performs, the fact that the City ... sponsors and pays the parade permit fees for certain activities related to government functions does not mean that the ordinance is discriminatorily applied.
Participatory enthusiasm is vital to their success. The size of a crowd and its enthusiasm for a cause may generate sufficient passion to sway the undecided. Thus, simple delay may permanently vitiate the expressive content of a demonstration. A spontaneous parade expressing a viewpoint on a topical issue will almost inevitably attract more participants and more press attention, and generate more emotion, than the “same” parade 20 days later. The later parade can never be the same. Where spontaneity is part of the message, dissemination delayed is dissemination denied.
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