It turns out that the law requires, that one explicitly plan, or actively incite violence against a protected group, so they could not get themselves arrested, though they did attract counter protesters, who quickly owned them:
No hands were cuffed. In fact, the few cops in attendance were paying no attention to the speakers, instead talking among themselves and checking their BlackBerrys.The kicker to all this:
The evangelical activists had been hoping to provoke arrest, because, as organizer Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission put it, "we'd have standing to challenge the law." But their prayers were not answered. Nobody was arrested, which wasn't surprising: To run afoul of the new law, you need to "plan or prepare for an act of physical violence" or "incite an imminent act of physical violence."
Instead of getting arrested, the ministers got something else: A couple of dozen gay activists, surrounding them with rainbow flags and signs announcing "Gaga for Gay Rights" and "I Am a Love Warrior." By the end, the gay rights activists had taken over the lectern and the sound system and were holding their own news conference denouncing the ministers.
Cass turned angrily to the AV guy. "We're not on the clock, are we?" He turned with equal anger to Valk. "You guys gonna help us pay for the microphones?"(emphasis mine)
The gay activist smiled. "God," he said, "works in mysterious ways."
In this case, God took the form of Chuck Fazio, from DC Podiums. Fazio was hired by the religious conservatives to provide the sound system for the event, but upon learning of their cause, he decided to donate his proceeds to the gay rights activists and to give them a chance at the microphone before shutting down the amplifiers. "I don't want bad karma," he explained, noting with some pride that the lectern they were using was the same one used by Borat on a recent Washington visit.
Heh.
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