Acting on behalf of a gay couple in New Jersey who found their engagement photo being used as fodder for an anti-gay direct-mail campaign in a state senate election halfway across the country, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit against Public Advocate of the United States, the far-right group based in Falls Church, Va.
“Our case is about the defiling of a beautiful moment,” Christine P. Sun, the SPLC’s deputy legal director, said in a conference call with reporters today. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for Colorado, and seeks unspecified monetary damages as well as a declaration that Public Advocate’s use of the photo depicting the couple—Brian Edwards and Tom Privitere—was illegal.
The original image, shot ahead of Edwards’ and Privitere’s wedding in September 2010, shows them in Brooklyn Bridge Park across from the Manhattan skyline. Earlier this year, Public Advocate crafted a piece of direct mail placing the couple on a snowy Rocky Mountain backdrop that went to voters in two Republican primaries in Colorado.
The SPLC sent Public Advocate a cease-and-desist letter on July 23, but Sun said her organization never got a response. Also named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed today is Kristina Hill, a New York-based photographer who took the original photo. Edwards’ and Privitere’s engagement photos were published on their blog chronicling their wedding and their lives since.
“It was a cheap way for them to get around having to pay for a stock photo,” Hill said on the conference call. “This is also an attack on the way photographers make a living.”
One of Public Advocate’s targets was State Sen. Jean White, who represents a swath of Western Colorado and twice voted for bills authorizing same-sex civil unions. (Both failed to pass the state house of representatives.) Along with the image of Edwards and Privitere kissing, Public Advocate’s mailers was the caption “Senator Jean White’s Idea of ‘Family Values’?” White lost her primary race and attributed the defeat to Public Advocate’s mail campaign.
“Why would anyone take our personal photo and use it in such an evil way?” Edwards said today. “This is a personal attack. But it is also an attack on the LGBT and allied community. Our hope is that the court will hold this group and its leader accountable so that no one will have to endnure the shock and heartbreak that we have had to endure.”
Public Advocate of the United State is led by Eugene Delgaudio, who is known to Northern Virginia residents as one of the most flamboyant local elected officials. As member of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Delgaudio has made outlandish statements on everything from the Transportation Security Administration to the forthcoming Silver Line. (“You’ve got a crazy circumstance in which the general public is going to get raped or not get raped,” he told Washington City Paper in June.)
Reached by email, Delgaudio had no comment about the lawsuit other than “I am looking into this.”
Sun said that while Public Advocate is based in Virginia and Edwards and Privitere live in New Jersey, the SPLC chose to file in Colorado because the direct mail campaign targeted a political race there.
The lawsuit comes the same day as a report in The Washington Post that Delgaudio, in his capacity as a Loudoun County supervisor, directed a former staffer in his county office to make fundraising calls for his campaigns. Delgaudio said the calls were being made to raise money for community organizations he supports. But the former also told the Post she has spoken to the FBI about Delgaduio’s alleged fundraising practices.
As for the engagement photo, Sun said Delgaudio and Public Advocate of the United States flouted the law instead of following the rules in disseminating their political message.
“Public Advocate of the United States, which is based in Virginia, stole a photo from Tom and Brian as a cheap way to weigh in on a political race hundreds of miles across the country,” she said.
