For some years, AIDS Walk Los Angeles, an annual event that is a great party as well as a magnificent fund raiser, has advertised on Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus. But this year, to his dismay, Craig Miller, a Santa Monica resident and creator of the Walk, was told by the City Attorney that the ads shouldn’t have appeared on the buses in previous years and wouldn’t be permitted this year.

The City permits commercial ads on the buses, but bans all non-commercial ads because they might contain material that would offend some people. As we find any number of commercial ads offensive, we find the logic that suggests only non-commercial ads may offend fatally flawed.

Miller took the City to court. Wednesday District Court Judge R. Gary
Klausner refused to grant a temporary restraining order that would have
forced Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus to run non-commercial advertising.

Judge Klausner agreed that the City did not violate the constitutional rights of the sponsors of AIDS Walk Los Angeles (AWLA) when it refused to run ads for its annual event October 14 on its municipal buses.

“Plaintiffs cannot demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits,”
the judge wrote, noting that the Ninth Circuit “has held that a non-commercial ban on advertising on municipal buses is constitutional provided the restriction is reasonable and view-point neutral.”

“Here,” Judge Klausner wrote, “plaintiffs fail to demonstrate that the
ban was unreasonable, viewpoint-based, or enforced in a manner that
violated plaintiffs’ equal protection rights. Further, plaintiffs cannot
demonstrate irreparable harm and the balance of equities do not weigh
in their favor.”

We disagree.The ban violates both Miller’s right to speak freely and his
equal protection rights. If the City is going to permit ads to appear on
the buses,it has to approve all ads, commercial or non-commercial.

City Attorney Marsha Moutrie seconded the judge’s ruling. “The Court reaffirmed cities’ authority to place reasonable limits on bus advertising, which is exactly what Santa Monica has done.”

Last month, the City Council voted 4 to 3 to maintain its policy, alleging that running non-commercial advertisements on its buses would make them an open forum for potentially offensive debate.

So what? The current campaign for the Presidency and Congressional seats is chiefly notable for “offensive debate.” A Missouri Senatorial candidate speaks of a woman’s body resisting “legitimate rape.” Mitt Romney condemns 47 percent of the American people for expecting the government to take care of them.

We can only conclude that it’s actually the difference between commercial and non-commercial ads that drives the City’s so-called policy.After all, the commercial advertisers pay. The non-commercial ads don’t. And City Hall is crazy about money, and anything but crazy about freedom of speech and/or “an open forum for potentially offensive debate.”

AIDS Walk Los Angeles is Sunday. Go. Speak freely. Give generously.