LA County Parks Cancels Annie Sprinkle’s Wedding

It’s a shame that Annie Sprinkle and her wife’s sixth wedding in a series of seven was cancelled by the the LA County Parks.

According to a press release, the Parks cited unsafe conditions as the reason for the cancellation :

It was discovered that your event is being advertised over the internet and is indicating that the public at large is invited to the free event. This has created an unsafe condition.

But, other events are also widely advertised so why pick on this one?

We interviewed Annie and Beth back in 2006 about their wedding series project where very year the new wedding is a color theme in line with the seven shakras.

You can find out more about their shakra marriage series at loveartlab.org

On a side note, my favorite photo in her book Post Porn Modernist features my partner Fausto at the tender age of 19 looking at annie’s cervix!

Here’s the full press release-

LA COUNTY PARKS CANCELS GAY ECO- SEXUAL WEDDING, CITING UNSAFE CONDITIONS

On Friday Oct 8th, well known performance artist Annie Sprinkle received
a call from LA County Parks & Recreation Deputy Director, Kathleen
Ritner, informing her that her rental contract for her wedding at the
Farnsworth Amphitheatre in Altadena had been canceled due to ³unsafe
conditions² created by the public announcement of the wedding inviting
people to witness their ³eco-sexual² wedding , in which Ms Sprinkle
would make vows with her long time romantic and performing partner Beth
Stephens under the auspices of the full moon.

In 2004, Sprinkle and Stephens had an appointment at San Francisco City
Hall to get legally married, but the day before they were to get
married, the weddings were stopped by court order. It was then that Ms.
Sprinkle and Ms. Stephens decided to have a series of art weddings in
which they would commit themselves, including a legal wedding in Canada.
.
The Los Angeles marriage was to take place Oct 23 at the Farnsworth
Amphitheatre, in Altadena, where weddings are often held throughout the
year. While drafting their contract Sprinkle and Stephens told the
rental office they were expecting around 400 people at the wedding, at
least 100 of them performers and artists helping them create the
wedding. They hired the recommended number of security guards and
proceeded to mail 120 hand made invitations, and also posted the wedding
announcement on various social sites and alerted interested media. After
commentary about the wedding appeared on the popular local ³Altadena
Blog,² Sprinkle received a call from Ritner, who cited security concerns
by unnamed Los Angeles county law enforcement personnel.

On the advice of the law enforcement agencies of the County of Los
Angeles, we are canceling your Facility Reservation Contract, #18716,
for the Farnsworth Park Amphitheatre on October 23, 2010. It was
discovered that your event is being advertised over the internet and is
indicating that the public at large is invited to the free event. This
has created an unsafe condition.

Since many free events are held at Farnsworth and advertised widely,
both over the Internet and through print publications, including teen
music nights, concerts, and charity events, since the venue has a
capacity well in excess of that expected by the wedding organizers, and
since the cancellation occurred abruptly without an opportunity to hire
additional security to deal with additional individuals that the LA
police believed might attend, Sprinkle, Stephens and their wedding
co-creators believe that the cancellation is in direct response to the
gender of the brides, and the environmental activist themes of their
vows. The wedding is to be officiated by Reverend Billy, a NYC based
preacher-performer who said, ³It is bad enough that same sex marriage is
illegal in California but now even the performance of a same sex
marriage is called un-safe. ²

Sprinkle & Stephens have no plans to cancel the wedding. They have
requested that the County of Los Angeles rescind its cancellation, and
allow Sprinkle and Stephens to use the Farnsworth venue for the
commitment ceremony, and are hopeful that the County will see the error
it has made. Anyone who is incensed by the discriminatory decision of
the Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation Department can call (213)
738-2961 or send a letter of protest to:

Russ Guiney, Director
Parks and Recreation Dept, LA County
433 S. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles CA 90020

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 12th, 2010 at 10:30 pm and is filed under Politics & Activism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.