Murfreesboro to pay $500,000 in settlement over its anti-LGBTQ ordinance

The City of Murfreesboro has settled in a lawsuit over its controversial policy on LGBTQ events.

The ACLU, Ballard Spahr, and Burr & Forman sued the city on behalf of organizers of the BoroPride Festival, who were denied permits for its annual event.

As part of the settlement, the city will be required to pay $500,000 and repeal an ordinance which had included “homosexuality” in its ban on “public indecency.” The Murfreesboro City Council had already repealed the ordinance in late December, after removing any mention of homosexuality the month prior.

“This type of behavior will no longer be tolerated here — or anywhere across the country,” said attorneys for the ACLU, Ballard Spahr, and Burr & Forman in a joint statement.

BoroPride side-stepped the city and held its 2023 festival on Middle Tennessee State University’s campus. Organizers said that in late 2022, the city told them that permit requests for future events would be denied.

“I’ve lived here my entire life,” a BoroPride organizer told WPLN News. “I first stumbled upon Pride the first year it happened, and I didn’t even know that there were this many queer people in Murfreesboro, let alone enough to have a Pride event. Seeing the younger, queer kids being told that their community isn’t allowed to be celebrated here has been really tough on them.”

The settlement will also require the City of Murfreesboro to accept and process any future event permit applications from the Tennessee Equality Project, the founder and host of BoroPride.

“Now we can turn our attention to preparing for the 2024 BoroPride festival and defending the rights of LGBTQ+ Tennesseans at the state legislature,” said TEP executive director Chris Sanders. “Our gratitude goes to the LGBTQ+ community for standing with us and to the legal advocates who championed the defense of free speech and expression.”

The ACLU said that it will be filing a dismissal of the case, in light of the settlement.