August 22nd, 2016
This past weekend, anti-gay and anti-abortion activist Flip Benham tried to disrupt Charlotte Pride by ranting into a portable loudspeaker in a Parking lot near the sound stage. Yelling, “stop celebrating sodomy in the streets!” and complaining about men who “puts his penis up another man’s rectum,” Benham sought to present the face of Christ to the gathered sodomites. The Charlotte Observer has more:
Christina Woodruff of Huntersville is only 10 years old, but she learned a very grown-up lesson about bigotry this weekend at the Charlotte Pride Festival and Parade in uptown.
“I was just standing there and a man told me that I was a child of the Devil,” said Christina, who is parented by a same sex couple. “I wanted to punch him, but my mom stopped me. I cried instead.”
Conservative religious groups have long provided sideline heckling at Charlotte’s annual gay pride celebration, including a group this year that tried to drown out Mayor Jennifer Roberts during the opening ceremony Saturday.
Fortunately, this wound up being little more than a side show. Charlotte Pride officials estimate that about 200,000 people showed up for the festival and parade, up from 120,000 people last year. The parade saw about 3,500 marchers, about ten of 135 contingents representing faith groups, which represents another record. Event organizers believe the record turnout is a show of support for the LGBT community in the face of North Carolina’s HB2.
Update: Charlotte Pride has issued a press release urging caution with the 200,000 attendance figure:
Final attendance estimates have not been released. We are confident that we met or exceeded last year’s attendance, which stood at 120,000 visitors over the course of the weekend. Parade participation jumped to over 140 parade entries, with 3,500 individual marchers in the parade, but full spectator and attendee numbers for the 2016 events are not yet available. We’ll be looking at all the numbers and doing some analysis in the coming days.
Several media outlets are reporting that organizers “expected 200,000” people or are reporting that organizers estimated attendance matched that number. This is incorrect, and has not been released by our organization.
Please note that official attendance estimates will be publicized solely from Charlotte Pride’s media spokesperson, Matt Comer, via press release or media advisory
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SharonB
August 22nd, 2016
And they wonder why church attendance is dealing.
Joyce Miller
August 23rd, 2016
On the other hand, SharonB, there were more church groups than ever before marching in support at Pride.
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