Fort Macleod Pride festival marred by protesters
By Lethbridge Herald on August 29, 2023.
Participants raise the Pride flag Saturday in Fort Macleod, which was later found cut down and burned.
Submitted photo by Rod HenriquezAlejandra Pulido-Guzman – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – apulido@lethbridgeherald.com
Members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community in Fort Macleod say they had to endure hateful actions while celebrating Pride over the past weekend.
Protesters are alleged to have disrupted festivities, released an odoriferous substance at an event at the Empress Theatre, as well as having cut down and burned the Pride flag pole.
The Fort Macleod Pride committee had organized two main events to celebrate Pride in the community, with one public event taking place outdoors and a private event being held inside the Empress Theatre, that required ticket purchases to attend.
Committee member Joshua O’Sullivan spoke to the Herald Monday and said the events that took place on Saturday during Pride stem from multiple online incidents that had been taking place for the last few weeks.
“This anti-2SLGBTQ+ community kind of hatred that has been really bubbling up within the right in United States and here in Canada, especially in Alberta, has started to really seep into our planning process and we started to see a lot of hatred growing in town where people’s businesses were threatened, their livelihoods were threatened, people actually as individuals were threatened,” said O’Sullivan.
He said they reached out to the mayor to address the issues and he sent out a letter outlining those issues, said O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan said that response prompted organizers to contact the RCMP directly because the threats were increasing in severity.
“The RCMP started to monitor all of this hate that was kind of spreading online and behind people’s keyboards and they realized very quickly that it was quite serious, and some of the threats were bad enough that they wanted to get involved, so thankfully they were at the park on Saturday morning,” said O’Sullivan.
He said while they were setting up for Pride in the Park there was a small group of protesters which started to form, but they just kept going on with their set-up as this was not their first rodeo, since growing up being part of the 2SLGBTQ+ community they had to encounter negative behaviour towards them before.
“As queer folks we kind of grow up knowing that these are the battles that we have to constantly fight and address, so we went about our day,” said O’Sullivan.
He said things were going fine at the beginning, but after the flag raising ceremony, which has been taking place since 2019, tensions started to grow.
“At that moment somebody from the ‘prayer circle’ – these are folks who called themselves freedom fighters – which was mainly men but some women and children as well, they ran over and they started saying ‘that’s disgusting’ and then tried to argue with the RCMP and question what was going on, and one of them even actually really aggressively stood in front of me as I was trying to film the flag-raising and wouldn’t let me move around him to continue filming,” said O’Sullivan.
He said that did not stop them from raising the flag, but the ‘freedom fighters’ placed a semi in front of a few flags that were hanging on a fence, to cover them and stopped them from being seen. They also threatened to bring a convoy to disrupt their celebration, he added
“The other thing that they did in the park, three times grown men were going to the power source and unplugging our power so that we could not continue speaking on the microphone, or so that performers singing couldn’t continue singing. The RCMP had to literally stand next to a power outlet because grown men were coming over and unplugging it,” said O’Sullivan.
He said after that things went smoothly for a while outdoors, but when the celebrations moved to the Empress Theatre things went sour again.
O’Sullivan said that to ensure the safety of Pride attendees, the RCMP closed off Main Street from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. to allow for foot traffic only, but that did not seem to stop the Pride opponents from trying to sabotage their event.
At about 8:30 p.m., Fort Macleod RCMP were patrolling the area around the Empress Theatre when officers were alerted to a disturbance inside and it was alleged that someone had discharged a smoke bomb, according to an RCMP press release Monday.
The release states that an investigation revealed the substance was “fisher and marten lure oil” and two youths were arrested fleeing the scene.
Empress Theatre board of directors chair Denise Joel told the Herald Monday that since the event was open to the public, they sold four tickets to four youth who did not seem like they were going to cause any trouble, and they proceeded to occupy a section of the theatre that contains four chairs by the back wall.
Joel said the youth managed to sneak in a glass jar that contained a black liquid that had a very foul smell, one she smelled herself as she was in the audience that night.
“I was there, I attended the show and was sitting in the middle of the theatre. I noticed a smell and thought maybe it was a skunk outside or something like that,” said Joel.
She said at the beginning they thought it was liquid pig manure because of the strong odor.
“About 10 to 15 minutes into the show, they started to leak the liquid onto the floor. A wooden floor that has been part of the building for over 100 years. A historical part of the building. Then they proceeded to let it leak onto the carpet and after that they went onto the main lobby and smashed the jar against the floor, causing the remaining liquid to spread on the floor and for the smell to take over the area,” said Joel.
She said thankfully the smell was mostly in the back so the show went on without any interruptions as people barely noticed it.
Joel said the problem they are now facing is the fact that the liquid seeped into the floor and the deep layers of the carpet and since both are historical elements of the building, they had to contact their insurance adjustor to find the best way to clean them as these are not something that can simply be replaced due to their historical value.
“This is a historical building and it is very misguided to think that you can protest by damaging it,” said Joel.
She said they are also waiting to hear from a health inspector with Alberta Health Services to find out if there is any health implications from inhaling the fumes. Therefore the theatre is closed until further notice, which is very worrisome for them as they have contracts they have to uphold.
O’Sullivan said that despite the malicious intent and constant efforts to ruin their celebration, their event went on and everyone had a good time. After hours, however, another incident happened that required the fire department to get involved.
“Sometime in the night (early Sunday morning), the Pride flag that we raised was cut down, pole and all, and burned in Centennial Park prompting the fire department to have to respond,” said O’Sullivan.
In response to that particular event, the RCMP told the Herald Monday “The investigation is ongoing and hopefully it can be determined whether or not the crime was hate motivated.”
31-30
It’s a no-brainer that this was hate motivated. What is sad here is, who put these ‘youth’ offenders up to it? If the charges go to court, are these ‘youths’ old enough to be tried as adults? If the damages are more than $5000, the charges could be, ‘mischief above $5000’, which is a very serious criminal offence, let alone hate motivated.
It may end up being a less than stellar situation and a hard lesson learned, for a so-called ‘christian,’ small, loud group of people. Love they neighbours? Not so much their walk/talk with God.
Of interest, Southern Albertan, is the research work of Dr. Gregory Herek, an internationally recognized authority on prejudice against sexual minorities, and anti-gay violence. Early in the 1980s, Dr. Herek conducted a review of numerous studies and created a profile for people who have negative attitudes towards the LGBTQIA2S+ community:
1. are less likely to have had personal contact with lesbians or gay;
2. are less likely to report having engaged in homosexual behaviors, or to identify themselves as lesbian or gay;
3. are more likely to perceive their peers as manifesting negative attitudes, especially if the respondents are males;
4. are more likely to have resided in areas where negative attitudes are the norm (e.g., the midwestern and southern United States, the Canadian prairies, and in rural areas or small towns), especially during adolescence;
5. are likely to be older and less well educated;
6. are more likely to be religious, to attend church frequently, and to subscribe to a conservative religious ideology;
7. are more likely to express traditional, restrictive attitudes about sex roles;
8. are less permissive sexually or manifest more guilt or negativity about sexuality, although some researchers have not observed this pattern and others have reported a substantially reduced correlation with the effects of sex-role attitudes partialled out;
9. are more likely to manifest high levels of authoritarianism and related personality characteristics.
As you state, there is no doubt regarding the motivation for the vandalism in Fort Macleod over the weekend.
Hope they ID and charge these “grown” men.
Why do they not name the group that organized the protest of the pride event? Who are the police and newspaper protecting?