THOMAS MORE SOCIETY

A National Public Interest Law Firm June 26, 2012 By: Email to info@lcfair.com Fax to 847-680-7260

Lake County Fair Association 1060 East Peterson Road Grayslake, IL 60030 Re: Lake County Right to Life Exhibitor Booth Denial Dear Lake County Fair Association: We represent Lake County Right to Life (LCRTL), a not-for-profit, educational organization based in Grayslake, Illinois. LCRTL recently applied for a booth at the Lake County Fair, as it has for each of the past thirty-seven years, but this year, LCRTL was unjustly and illegally denied a booth this year, as described below. LCRTL participates in the fair in order to share valuable health, religious, and religiously based political information from a pro-life perspective to fair patrons. A central educational feature of LCRTLs message to fairgoers (who approach the booth to view the message) is a visual description of a human babys gestational development at seven intervals during pregnancy, using fetal models. (Such cutaway models are commonly used in museums and schools to show bodily organs and processes normally hidden from view.) The fetal models are anatomically accurate and non-controversial, suitable for viewing by children. Our clients have observed the fetal models being used on many occasions by mothers to describe to their children how babies develop, a topic of natural curiosity to children and adults alike. The utility of the fetal models for presenting LCRTLs message is that, as a visual aid, they help to render self-evident, in the words of the Framers of the Declaration of Independence, the humanity of the pre-born child in the womb and its inalienable right to life. LCRTLs ability to communicate its pro-life message is significantly aided by these visual aids, which are common in county fair exhibits. Without them, LCRTLs ability to communicate its religious pro-life message is crippled, as only a visual model is truly able to show in three dimensions the human shape and form of a pre-born human child, with inherent humanity and dignity. The models importance for LCRTL in visually communicating its pro-life message is such that LCRTL has displayed these exact fetal models in its booth for every one of the past 37 years. According to LCRTL volunteers Bonnie Quirke and Rosemary Simon, who have worked the booth each year, never has a fairgoer raised a complaint or concern over the models appropriateness. To the contrary, many fairgoers have thanked LCRTL for displaying the models, and several persons have noted that the displays enabled them better to understand and appreciate their pregnancies. In fact, the models are so unobjectionable that Ms. Quirke uses them in presentations to school children.

29 S. LaSalle | Suite 440 | Chicago, IL 60603 | www.thomasmoresociety.org | P: 312.782.1680 | F: 312.782.1887

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

Lake County Fair Association-LCRTL Page 2 of 3 June 26, 2012 Our clients were, then, quite surprised when the Fair Associations Kathleen Van Dien stated to Ms. Quirke after she applied for a booth this year on behalf of LCRTL that the fair would refuse a booth to LCRTL if it intended to use its three-dimensional fetal models. When Ms. Quirke asked Ms. Van Dien the reason for the condition, Ms. Van Dien stated that some complaints had been received about the models. Ms. Quirke inquired into the nature of the complaints. Ms. Van Dien said she would not go into that. Ms. Quirke asked Ms. Van Dien if the Fairs Board of Directors were aware of the Fairs position, and she said that the board was meeting that evening (May 17, 2012) and she would review the issue with them. Later Ms. Quirke learned from Ms. Van Dien that the board upheld the fairs decision. When Ms. Quirke asked for the decision in writing, Ms. Van Dien said, Oh, were much too busy to do that. The Fair Associations refusal to grant LCRTL a booth constitutes illegal and invidious discrimination. It is clear that the objection raised by the Fair Association is not to the models themselves, which have been used for 37 years without incident, but to the religious and political message the models represent. LCRTL uses the fetal models precisely because they are the most effective means available to convey its central message that a human being has an inalienable right to life from conception to natural death, which must be protected in law. Not only is this a core teaching of Christianity and the Catholic Church, it is a political message because of its myriad legal ramifications. The refusal of the Fair Association to honor LCRTLs prerogative to choose its own effective, and entirely ageappropriate, means to communicate its message subverts, interferes with, and discriminates against LCRTL on the basis of its religion, and expresses a political preference for opponents to its message. As the Fair is a public accommodation under the Illinois Human Rights Act and Title II of the federal Civil Rights Act, the Fair Association is prohibited from discriminating against LCRTL based on its religious message. Further, as a 501(c)(3) public charity, the Fair Associations operating procedures require that it refrain from discriminating against participants based on religion or political preference. (See, the Fairs Vendor Overview). While the Fair may reserve the right to reject displays (under the Vetting section of its Vendor Overview) that are unethical, misleading, designer knock-offs, extravagant, questionable, in poor taste or otherwise inappropriate or incompatible with the character of the fair, this reservation to supervise displays does not allow it to curtail the religious or political message of participants and so to discriminate against their religious or political views. Since none of the adjectives in the vetting policy apply to the fetal models, which have been used without incident for 37 years and are quite suitable for viewing even by small children, the Fair Association is without authority to disallow this chosen means of communication by LCRTL. That it purports to do so renders more obvious its discriminatory intent to subvert the religious pro-life message of LCRTL. Ms. Van Dien alluded to complaints about the fetal models. The Fair Association cannot and should not stifle religious or political speech based on stray negative comments or complaints about the message a booth conveys or about the means by which it is conveyed. Nondiscrimination toward religious and political speech in a public accommodation requires a measure of deafness to complaints by disgruntled listeners. Otherwise a mere gripe would sanction silencing religious and political
29 S. LaSalle | Suite 440 | Chicago, IL 60603 | www.thomasmoresociety.org | P: 312.782.1680 | F: 312.782.1887
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

Lake County Fair Association-LCRTL Page 3 of 3 June 26, 2012 expression. The Fair hosts several overtly political booths and claims that it wont extend a political preference to one political view or another. The same promise of nondiscrimination must and should extend to a participants religious speech, and certainly to the combination of religious and political speech that LCRTLs speech, including its use of fetal models, represents. The Fair Associations denial of a permit to LCRTL to exhibit at this years Lake County Fair unless it agrees not to display its fetal models is illegal and indefensible censorship, not in accord with the proud heritage of the Fair. Should the Lake County Fair Association persist in its illegal discrimination against LCRTL, we are prepared to pursue the matter with the Illinois Human Rights Commission, in court, and before other appropriate forums, and even beyond the scheduled Fair dates, to protect our clients rights both for this year and in the future. LCRTL would like to sponsor a booth again this year at the Lake County Fair, as it has for the past 37 years. But LCRTL will not allow its religious and political message to be so severely curtailed by the unreasonable and invidious conditions imposed by Ms. Van Dien. We therefore urge you to grant our clients booth application, without any objection to their display of fetal models. We request advice of your decision immediately, so that we will have adequate time to pursue legal action to secure relief for our clients, should the need arise. Please be so kind as to provide your response by Friday, June 29, 2012. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Very truly yours,

___________________________ Peter Breen Executive Director & Legal Counsel

___________________________ Thomas Olp Affiliated Attorney

29 S. LaSalle | Suite 440 | Chicago, IL 60603 | www.thomasmoresociety.org | P: 312.782.1680 | F: 312.782.1887

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King