Protesters gather at first Harrison, Arkansas Pride festival

by Sarah Boone
Journalism Intern

On Saturday in Harrison, Arkansas, the town’s first-ever gay Pride festival was held. Among the attendees, there were protestors waving confederate flags and displaying signs that said “Protect Christian Marriage.”

A local news station reported that some signs being held up by the protestors were so offensive that they refused to show them.

The Pride festival held was created by town citizens to honor the victims of the Pulse shooting. Proceeds from the event went towards a fund for the victims and their families.

Harrison, Ark. is infamous for being a home to the Ku Klux Klan, since the national director of the hate group maintains his office in a town close to it.

A blog post for the protest claimed the Pride Fest was "a degenerate event" where "sodomites and other sexual deviants" would go to "celebrate their perversion." The post also displayed indirect threats to attendees of the event.

 "We certainly are glad to see people come out in support of this faggotry display, it lets us know who are (SIC) neighbors are," the author of a post on the protest’s Facebook page wrote. "We will not allow such degeneracy to go on in our town without it being decried." 

"His [God’s] law condemns this and says that it is evil and we don’t want our children to be growing up in a city where homosexuals can parade around the town square or get married on the courthouse steps," protest organizer R.G. Miller told KSFM. 

However, Pride attendees had an entirely different approach than the protestors did.

Pride Fest organizer Alexx Breedlove told KSFM she didn’t care about the protestors. 

"I mean everybody's got their freedom of expression, they've got their significant choice of words, and I've got love, acceptance, community, that kind of thing," Breedlove said.

Another Pride Fest attendee told the station: "Maybe you're not so sure what it looks like over here, but you can kinda see what it looks like over there. I think we look like we're having a better time."

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The Gayly - 8/1/2016 @ 2:16 p.m.