FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Washington, DC (May 9, 2021) – Monday morning, the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, in a joint effort with the Liberty Justice Center, filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Washington DC bride-to-be, Margaret Appleby, challenging DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s recent executive order banning wedding dancing.
In the 1984 Kevin Bacon classic, Footloose, a puritanical minister played by John Lithgow persuaded the town counsel of fictional Bomont to ban dancing within its limits. Now in 2021, with less than six degrees of separation, Bowser has reprised Lithgow’s role. But rather than setting her sights on recreational dance, she has targeted an even more venerable American cultural tradition—wedding dancing.
Bowser’s most recent executive order singles out and bans “standing and dancing receptions” at weddings. At the same time, the order permits fitness dance classes, recreational dancing competitions, and even exotic dancing in front of up to 500 patrons at the strip club.
“The First Amendment does not permit the District to irrationally discriminate against wedding dancing, while simultaneously allowing equally dangerous, though less expressive, activities to continue without remark,” said Adam Schulman, a senior attorney with the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute.
For brides and grooms like Margaret, wedding dances create once-in-a-lifetime memories, the loss of which would be irreplaceable. For many couples, wedding dancing is not only of social and cultural significance, but also a practice of their faith. But the District privileges instead the memories of a Zumba class or a guided tour. “The Order is hopelessly arbitrary, unscientific, and divorced from the current realities of the pandemic,” said Theodore H. Frank, Director of Litigation and senior attorney with the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute. “There are any number of less burdensome avenues that would allow the District to protect its interest in public health while still allowing wedding dancing.”
Margaret’s wedding is scheduled for early June. She hopes to win an order from the federal district court in DC declaring the order’s prohibition on wedding dancing to be unconstitutional and enjoining city officials from enforcing the ban.
Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute is a nonprofit public interest law firm formed in 2019. HLLI challenges administrative and regulatory actions and abuses of the class action and civil justice system that exceed constitutional limits, promote rent-seeking, or otherwise improperly create deadweight loss; and challenges improper restrictions on speech and other actions beyond constitutional bounds. HLLI’s website is http://hlli.org.
Contact:
Ted Frank, 703-203-3848, ted.frank@hlli.org
Adam Schulman, 610-457-0856, adam.schulman@hlli.org