Suit was filed last week in a California federal district court by leaders of May Day USA, a nationwide Christian revival event, contending that the manner in which Los Angeles officials handed their application for a permit to hold a revival on Hollywood Boulevard violated their 1st and 14th Amendment rights. The 54-page complaint (full text) in Donnelly v. City of Los Angeles, California, (CD CA, filed 8/21/2025), alleges in part:
15. LAPD wielded the unconstitutionally unbridled discretion afforded it under the City’s permitting scheme to subject MayDay to lengthy and pretextual administrative hurdles....
16. Among the LAPD’s many demands was a requirement that MayDay conduct a petition of Hollywood Boulevard’s business owners and vendors to ensure at least 51% approved of MayDay’s expressive activity and speech....
19. The City’s permitting scheme thus enshrined an unconstitutional heckler’s veto upon MayDay and its expressive activities....
21. The City refused to provide MayDay with any concrete answer on its permit application until the last minute, prohibiting MayDay from finalizing their planned event, advertising it, or otherwise adequately preparing to engage in the event....
23. Three days prior to its requested event, the City denied the permit actually requested by MayDay ...and “granted” the application to host the event at a location ... it never requested and out of the site of the hecklers who Defendants believed would veto MayDay’s speech. In essence, the City tried to put MayDay unconstitutionally out of sight, and out of mind....
25. Simply put, the City said MayDay could speak, but only if it did it quietly, quickly, and where no one who might object would be forced to hear it. Defendants denied MayDay’s permit application on the basis of the views it planned to espouse and out of concern that Hollywood Boulevard was not an appropriate place for their religious speech, exercise, and expression.
Liberty Counsel issued a press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit.
