Justices Bar Group From Naming Event the ‘Gay Olympics’

WASHINGTON —  The U.S. Olympic Committee has the legal authority to bar a homosexual rights group from sponsoring athletic competition called the Gay Olympics, the Supreme Court ruled today.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices ruled that Congress has granted the Olympic Committee exclusive commercial use of the word “Olympic.”

The court added that the Olympic Committee may not be sued even if it is enforcing its exclusive right in a way that discriminates against homosexuals.

The court rebuffed claims that the U.S. Olympic Committee has enforced its trademark rights in a biased way by letting organizations sponsor “Olympics” for handicapped children, police officers, Armenians and other groups of people but not for homosexuals.

Because the committee is not a government agency, it cannot violate someone’s constitutionally protected right to equal protection under the law, Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. wrote for the court.

“Congress intended to grant the (committee) exclusive use of the word ‘Olympic’ without regard to whether use of the word tends to cause confusion,” Powell said.

Generic Argument Rejected

He rejected arguments that Olympic is a generic word that cannot be granted trademark protection without violating the free-speech rights guaranteed by the Constitution’s First Amendment.

“Because Congress reasonably could conclude that the (committee) has distinguished the word ‘Olympic’ through its own efforts, Congress’ decision to grant the (committee) a limited property right in the word falls within the scope of trademark law protections, and thus certainly within constitutional bounds,” Powell said.

He was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Byron R. White, John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia.

Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Harry A. Blackmun voted to send the case back to a federal appeals court for further study.

Justices William J. Brennan Jr. and Thurgood Marshall, disagreeing that further study is needed, concluded that the Olympic Committee discriminated unlawfully against the gay group.

Forced to Drop ‘Olympic’

A group calling itself San Francisco Arts and Athletics organized the first Gay Olympics in 1982. But the organization was forced by court order to drop the word Olympic from the athletic event’s title after the U.S. Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee sued.

The second such competition sponsored by the group was held in San Francisco last year, and was called Gay Games II. About 3,500 athletes from many nations participated.

In another decision today, a bitterly divided court voted 5 to 4 to shield the federal government and its agents from being sued by a former Army sergeant who was given LSD without his knowledge as part of secret chemical warfare tests.