Minuteman Project Sets Sights on a New Parade

The Minuteman Project is giving up on plans to participate in a March 4 Patriots Day parade in Laguna Beach, and now has its eye on a San Juan Capistrano event.

The anti-illegal immigration group sued for a spot in the parade, but on Feb. 7 an Orange County Superior Court judge declined to order Laguna Beach organizers to include it. Minuteman Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist responded by saying that as many as 1,500 of the group’s supporters would attend as spectators.

But Tuesday, Gilchrist, an Aliso Viejo resident, said plans had changed.

“We’re calling everybody and we’re telling them we will deal with this another way,” he said. “We’re going to go elsewhere, to where we’ve been invited.”

Gilchrist says he’s been asked to participate in the March 25 Swallows Day Parade in San Juan Capistrano and has applied.

He and 50 supporters plan to dress as the Continental Army soldiers who fought for independence from Britain, he said. Swallows Day parade organizers could not be reached for comment.

“We feel frustrated because we are innocent American patriots,” Gilchrist said. “This has never been about me. It’s about country and community. And we’ve found a new place, a community that cares.”

The group’s decision to stay out of Laguna Beach was a pragmatic one. Negotiations are underway in which the Minuteman Project would not appeal the judge’s order and its members would stay out of Laguna Beach on parade day. In return, the city and the parade committee would not make the group pay their attorney fees, said Eugene Gratz, the attorney representing the parade committee.

“They had made threats they were going to bring all these people in here, and we put an end to that,” the attorney said.

Laguna Beach parade organizers had said their bylaws prohibited political and religious entries. Their homespun event, commemorating Patriots Day, has attracted veterans groups, the Girl Scouts and local high school bands. Patriots Day celebrates victories in the Revolutionary War.