HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) -- The Ku Klux Klan lost a fight against a new waiting period to hold rallies in a predominantly black city after a judge rejected the group's attempt to have the rule declared unconstitutional.
Gary Mayor Scott King last month changed the waiting period from seven days to 45 on the same day the city rejected a Klan request to hold a rally around the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
U.S. District Court Judge James T. Moody said Thursday that the Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, based in Butler, had failed to rebut the city's explanations for the rule, primarily that it takes the city 45 days to evaluate, process and approve a permit application.
"I hope they dry up and blow off the face of the earth," King said when asked about the Klan's efforts. "Barring that, I hope they just stay away from Gary."
"It is so hurtful to so many people. It's really contemptible," he said.
Ken Falk, legal director for the Indiana Civil Liberties Union who represented the Klan at Thursday's hearing, said the Klan will decide its next step after the city decides whether to grant it a rally permit for March.
He said the 45-day waiting period was excessive. "There's no indication of why it should take 45 days when the city of Chicago can do it in seven," he said.
However, attorney James Meyer, who represented the city, said that unlike Chicago, Gary is 85 percent black.
"You can't say how visceral their reaction will be to the Klan, who not too long ago were lynching their relatives," Meyer said.
Gary Police Chief John Roby had said in an affidavit that the city's police force of 200 officers was not big enough to handle such a rally.
The American Knights have held high-profile rallies near the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in years past. A rally two years ago in Memphis, Tenn., two days before the King holiday set off a rock-throwing scuffle. Last year, about 50 Klan members rallied on the steps of a courthouse in Alabama.
