2 Live Crew Draws 75 Protesters to ‘Obscene’ Concert

About 75 protesters demonstrated outside a concert by 2 Live Crew on Friday night, led by a coalition of religious and lay leaders who said they were outraged that city officials would allow a group to perform “obscene” lyrics that promote lewd and violent sexual acts.

The protesters lined the sidewalk outside the Celebrity Theatre, chastising concert-goers and waving signs that read, “Stop America’s slide into the sewer,” at cars approaching the theater parking lot.

The demonstration was mostly peaceful, except for several protesters who traded verbal barbs with some people going into the concert.

Concert-goers, mostly teen-agers, were searched by theater security personnel and scanned with hand-held metal detectors before being admitted. No arrests were made either inside or outside the theater.

Earlier in the day, Howard Garber, leader of Citizens Against Obscenity and Pornography, said at a press conference that he had asked police to arrest members of the controversial rap group if they recited lyrics that a federal court judge in Florida has ruled to be obscene. Further, he said, 2 Live Crew fans also should be arrested if they recite the lyrics during an audience-participation number.

Garber--backed at the press conference by a Baptist minister, the president of a Jewish community center and the leader of a Fullerton anti-pornography group--said he was outraged that the Anaheim City Council twice rejected a resolution he proposed opposing the performance. In addition, he said, 2 Live Crew was performing at a theater constructed on land that was part of a city-sponsored redevelopment project, and parking for the 2,600-seat facility, directly adjacent to City Hall, is allowed on city property.

“We’re outraged that in a community like Orange County, that our own City Council didn’t have what it took to say (to 2 Live Crew), ‘You are not welcome here,’ ” Garber said.

Mayor Fred C. Hunter could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon. But at council meetings when Garber’s resolutions were presented, Hunter had indicated that with low ticket sales and lack of publicity, the controversy would fade away.

“For us to ban anybody . . . there’s other ways to do it without running around screaming,” Hunter has said. “For us to even pass a resolution banning 2 Live Crew isn’t right.”

Police Chief Joseph T. Molloy said in a telephone interview Friday afternoon that officers would be at the performance “to keep the peace. If there are any violations of the law, we will take action.”

Although he declined to specify what situations would result in arrest, Molloy said that 2 Live Crew’s recitation of lyrics, by itself, would not be cause for arrest.

Community standards--one of the legal yardsticks for obscenity--”are not restricted to Broadway Street,” where the theater is located, Molloy said. “We have discussed this with the city attorney’s office, and we will have a representative of the city attorney’s office at the concert to help us. . . . We are not going to get caught up in a circus environment.”

Garber, at the afternoon press conference, decried the current state of community standards. The lyrics of 2 Live Crew’s songs promote statutory rape and violent sexual acts, he contended. They are not protected by the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech because “obscenity and pornography are not protected by the Constitution,” he said.

“We want people to know they’re selling obscenity at $21 a ticket here,” said the Rev. Wiley Drake of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, as he stood under the Celebrity Theatre’s marquee Friday afternoon.

“Citizens have a right not to have this garbage in their town,” added Barbara Marr of a citizens group that fought against an X-rated theater in Fullerton.

Times staff writer Tony Marcano contributed to this report.