Honoring Courageous United States District Court Judge Henry Lee Adams, Jr.

On June 7, 2005, the Honorable Henry Lee Adams, Jr. found the City of St. Augustine violated the First Amendment when it refused to let St. Augustine Gay Pride fly Rainbow flags on the Bridge of Lions.

The City of St. Augustine did not appeal. Local bigots seethed. Local bigots still seethe whenever the subject of the Rainbow flags comes up.

Thanks to Judge Adams' correct interpretation of First Amendment law, the Rainbow flags flew on our Bridge of Lions from June 8-13, 2005. (As Mary Moewe of Jacksonville Business Journal said on "First Coast Week in Review), "the flags were beautiful."

Gays sought to honor 11,000 years of GLBTQ history in our area, including a 1566 murder of a Gay French interpreter on orders of City of St. Augustine founder Pedro Menendez de Aviles (who called him "a Sodomite and a Lutheran," a fact that Menendez' brother-in-law wrote down and preserved for history).

During the June 7, 2005 oral argument, Judge Adams was kind but persistent, asking the City's insurance defense lawyer, "what's the Broward Yacht Company?" (She candidly replied, "I think it's a yacht company, your honor.") Judge Adams also pointed out that Flagler College was allowed to fly its flags on the Bridge of Lions 59 days during 2004-2005 and that the only thing "historic" about Flagler College was the age of one of its buildings.

Judge Adams' career has been one of firsts (see below). While the Jacksonville Times-Union carried a front-page article about Judge Adams, there has been no word about his elevation to senior status in the St. Augustine WRecKord, the designated coverup artist for the City of St. Augustine and its mendacious City Manager, WILLIAM B. HARRISS. Wonder why?

We need more courageous and principled judges like Judge Henry Lee Adams, Jr.

As U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens prepares to retire, we need more judges with humility and agility like Judge Stevens and Judge Adams -- people who are inspired by our Founding Fathers' vision -- people who are not afraid to hold large and small organizations accountable.

United States District Judge John J. Sirica wrote in his memoirs about an honor he was given by the City University of New York after his zealous questions exposed the Watergate break-in and coverup:
Two quotations were included in my citation. The first is from Edmund Burke, who said, “It is the duty of the Judge to receive every offer of evidence, apparently material, suggested to him, though the parties themselves through negligence, ignorance, or corrupt coilllusion, should not bring it forward. A judge is not placed in that high situation merely as a passive instrument of parties. He has a duty of his own, independent of them, and that duty is to investigate the truth.” The second is Thomas Aquinas’ definition of Justice as “a certain rectitude of mind, whereby a [person] does what he ought to do in the circumstances confronting him.”
United States District Judge John J. Sirica, To Set the Record Straight – The Break-in, The Tapes, The Conspirators, the Pardon (1979) at 83 (Emphasis added).


Judge Adams previously held the City of St. Augustine violated the rights of artists and entertainers on St. George Street. Judge Adams' career has touched many lives.

Kudos to Judge Adams upon achieving senior status, after some 31 years on the bench in state and federal courts.