By Erica C. Barnett

UPDATE on Friday, August 15: Last-minute discussions could end up moving the event after all; we probably won’t know more until next week, but the planned statements and counter-programming announcements originally planned for Friday have been postponed amid ongoing conversations, PubliCola has learned.

Organizers of a far-right August 30 rally and concert called “Revive In 25” will receive approval this week to hold a rally and concert at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill, PubliCola has learned. The event’s organizer, Christian nationalist celebrity Sean Feucht, has promoted as an explicit provocation to the historically LGBTQ+ neighborhood. Feucht has described homosexuality as demonic, frequently mocks trans people, and has claimed to “deliver” people from being gay.

Multiple sources familiar with the discussions say the city is preparing to issue a permit for the park at the end of this week, ending months of speculation that began in May, when Feucht claimed falsely on X that the city had already granted the permit. “Will @MayorofSeattle revoke it because we are Christians?” he wrote. Nothing’s official until it’s official, of course—the city still has two days before the planned announcement—but PubliCola’s reporting indicates that the decision has essentially been made.

An anti-trans “Mayday Seattle” rally held by a different extremist group earlier this year led to an over-the-top response from police, who deployed pepper spray and other “less lethal” weapons against protesters, arresting 23. Days later, police served as de facto security for the same group when they held a second rally at City Hall, barricading the public plaza outside City Hall, shutting down Fourth Ave., and allowing the group to blast amplified praise music for hours without a permit. Police arrested eight protesters at that event.

Seattle officials who want to prevent a repeat of the Mayday debacle tried to find a way to justify denying the permit without violating the group’s First Amendment rights.

One idea—closing down the park for the day for maintenance or repairs—was reportedly rejected out of hand. So was the idea of getting another group to file for a permit for the park and granting that permit instead of Feucht’s. The city also considered denying the permit on security grounds—police will be stretched thin across multiple big events over the busy Labor Day weekend—but ultimately did not want to risk a First Amendment lawsuit from Feucht’s group.

Several people familiar with the discussions about whether to issue the permit pointed out that events like the planned rally also result in lawsuits, typically from people injured by police. If the concern is strict liability, allowing extremists to hold events in Seattle parks may ultimately cost the city more money than denying a permit and dealing with the legal fallout.

Eight cities in Canada have canceled Feucht’s events over safety concerns.

The Lavender Rights Project is reportedly working with other Black queer community organizers to put on counter-programming in the park. The exact details of how this will work remain under wraps until the permit decision becomes official, but Hollingsworth said she’s “hopeful and optimistic that … if people want to peacefully protest, that they can—that people can exercise their First Amendment rights and those [events] can coexist together.”

The rally and concert is part of a tour through what Feucht has called “America’s darkest, most broken cities” that, according to Feucht, have been taken over by “antifa” and are persecuting Christians. Feucht, who did not respond to PubliCola’s request for comment, has described the tour as a “MANDATE from heaven to ‘rebuild places long devastated’.”

The tour is part of Feucht’s ongoing “Let Us Worship” campaign, which began as a protest against public health measures that prevented large groups from gathering indoors in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The city’s ability to deny permits to groups with political opinions it finds noxious or hateful is limited by the First Amendment, which prevents local officials from restricting speech based on a person or organization’s views. Denying a permit on the grounds that Feucht is running a hate group could open the city up to a lawsuit that could be hard to win, given longstanding legal precedent that the First Amendment protects all kinds of expression, including hate speech.

First Amendment rights aren’t limitless, however; cities can impose time, place, and manner restrictions on events—for example, providing a permit for a different, less provocative location than the heart of Seattle’s historical LGBTQ+ neighborhood—if they have a legitimate reason for doing so, such as an incitement to violence or threat of harm to the public.

Historically, the city has been reluctant to impose time, place, and manner restrictions, and generally grants permits to controversial groups that choose high-profile locations for their events in the hope of provoking controversy; the Seattle Public Library, for instance, has repeatedly allowed anti-trans and far-right groups to book its downtown Seattle auditorium rather than renting out alternative, less centrally located library meeting rooms to groups seeking negative attention.

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Advocates say the city could do more than just throw up their hands and issue condemnatory statements after the fact.

Jaelynn Scott, executive director of the Lavender Rights Project, said city officials “need to take a bold stance on trans folks in the face of the rising threat of fascism in our community— to not be over-restrictive in their interpretation of the law and to take a risk.” Standing up to groups like Feucht’s would risk a lawsuit, but facilitating the use of Seattle’s parks by Christian nationalist groups with MAGA ties also sends a message that the city is a willing pawn for far-right extremists.

City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, who represents Capitol Hill, said she would prefer that the rally take place somewhere other than Cal Anderson, but “I can’t dictate that.” She said she’s spoken to Police Chief Shon Barnes about the best ways to protect both rally participants and counterprotesters, including physical separation between the two groups.

“It is not my place to say whether the city can or cannot provide a safe environment at Cal Anderson; that is a logistical thing,” Hollingsworth said. “I want to protect First Amendment rights on all fronts.”

It’s unclear how City Attorney Ann Davison advised the city on any of these alternatives; her office declined to respond to questions. Davison’s legal advice carries weight—city officials can ignore it, but risk personal legal liability for doing so.

The mayor’s office also declined to answer PubliCola’s questions. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said, “Park Use Permits aren’t issued for about two weeks (15 days) prior the event.” In fact, the Parks Department has no such policy, and typically issues permits much faster than in this case. For example, the department issued the permit for the Mayday USA rally on April 8, just eight days after the organizers filed their application and more than six weeks before the rally took place.

Additionally, a document outlining the Parks Department’s permitting process says it typically takes between 15 and 30 days to approve a permit once it’s filed. There is no reference in city code or on the department’s permitting page to a policy of waiting until two weeks before an event to grant a permit.

In response to followup questions, Harrell’s spokesperson said, “No permit has been issued, so at this time, I don’t have anything more to add.”

A petition in Seattle, which mirrors similar petitions in other cities targeted by Feucht’s “Let Us Worship” tour, asks the city to move the event to Magnuson Park instead of Cal Anderson.

Emails obtained through a records request show that city departments did a poor job of communicating with each other about the Mayday rally earliert his year. Three days before the event, a lieutenant in SPD’s operations center asked the Parks Department about moving the event “to lessen the chance of a conflict between the event organizers and counter protesters” after receiving an email from the Mayday group complaining that “pro-trans protesters” might show up without a permit. (People do not need a permit to protest).

Two days after that, and less than 24 hours before the event, an emergency management official overseeing the city’s Park Rangers reached out to the Parks Department to confirm the rally was happening; apparently, no one had bothered to tell him.