A judge in Orange County, California has ruled that the local Vietnamese community’s annual Tet Parade can legally bar LGBTs from marching as a group. There will be no formal LGBT entries in this year’s Little Saigon Tet Parade after an Orange County judge ruled that organizers were within their First Amendment rights to bar them from taking part.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Geoffrey T Glass would not grant an injunction requested by the Partnership of Viet Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Organizations, a coalition of Vietnamese American LGBT groups, to allow them to participate in the parade, stating that parade organizers were within their rights to decide which groups could march.

Judge Glass cited a 1995 Supreme Court ruling that allowed the organizers of South Boston’s St Patrick’s Day Parade organizers to bar LGBT groups from marching in their parade in making his decision.

In 1995 the Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional for privately organized parades to exclude groups under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

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