Counter protesters are gearing up to disrupt a controversial Boston “straight pride” parade on Aug. 31, even if it means ending up in handcuffs.

The Lucy Parsons Center, an anarchist, nonprofit bookstore and community center in Jamaica Plain, has set up a crowdfunding campaign to raise $2,500 for bail money and legal assistance to counter protesters who might get arrested.

“Its rallying cry is ‘protect our borders,’ a proxy for ‘preserve our national identity’ and in this case, preserve ‘straight’ culture, whatever that might mean,” Emerson College President Lee Pelton said. “Do not be lulled into believing this parade is motivated by any noble obligation to protect freedom of speech or assembly.”

In an open letter on the college website, Pelton described the motivation of the Straight Pride Parade as “ignorance, fear and its hideous offspring, hate.”

But Super Happy Fun America President John Hugo, who is organizing the Straight Pride parade, says he wants to embrace his heterosexuality.

“I want the right to walk up a street and be proud of my heterosexuality,” he said. “The idea of having a straight pride parade is a way to push back against the leftist agenda.”

The Straight Pride parade is scheduled to start in Copley Square to conclude in front of Boston City Hall, where there will be speeches by various speakers.

“You don’t have to be oppressed,” said Hugo. “Though I would suggest we are being oppressed.”

“I call us an oppressed majority" he added.

The event made national headlines as actors and politicians around the country bashed the parade plans.

“The opposition [to the parade] started four days after it was posted on Twitter,” Hugo said. “We were shocked because it was so vicious.”

“Straight Pride” parade planned in Boston. With floats. pic.twitter.com/JcTsGRjNPn — carolynryan (@carolynryan) June 4, 2019

The news also sparked plans for a counter protest on the same day. The fundraiser on the FundRazr site says the counter protesters have 72% raised of a goal of $2,500.

City Hall also caught flak for issuing the permit for the parade. Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s office said the city cannot deny a permit based on an organization’s values.

“Applications to host a public event are granted based on operational feasibility, not based on values or endorsements of beliefs,” Walsh’s office said in a statement. The mayor does not plan to attend the events.

Still organizers on both side say they want to try to keep the events peaceful.

“Everyone has the right for peaceful protest,” said Tarah Demant, Amnesty International director of the Gender, Sexuality and Identity Program. “And the same for peaceful counter protesting.”

This isn’t the first time events tied to Super Happy Fun America have faced controversy. Samson Racioppi, a grassroots organizer at the organization, moderated a debate about immigration on Dec. 6, 2018, at Berklee College, Boston. The event, called "Young Americans for Liberty” was shut down shortly after it began.

“We managed to have a small amount of debating prior to getting kicked out,” Racioppi recalled in an interview with MassLive. “And the debate itself spilled out into the street afterwards.”

“Massachusetts is a fascist, left-wing dictatorship, one-party ruled kingdom,” Hugo added. “We would love to have a peaceful march down the street, get to city hall, listen to some wonderful speakers, and call it a day.”

"It's about my right to rally," said the organiser of Straight Pride, Boston John Hugo. He talks about the reasons he wanted to organise the event that has come at a great personal cost to himself and those around him. (Douglas Hook / MassLive)

When asked about public safety concerns for individuals on both sides of the debate, the Boston Police Department declined to comment, saying it doesn’t comment on safety issues.

Elvin Mackelston, a spokesperson for Solidarity Against Hate, called the parade a recruitment tool for the far right.

“We want to shut them down because they’re Nazis,” Mackelston said. “They’re just a cover for something more nefarious."

Mackelston and members of his group told MassLive that they have no intention of talking to the organizers or trying to debate them. They also say the city is complicit for letting the parade go ahead.

Demant said the group organizing the parade willfully misunderstand the history of why the LGBTQ communities celebrate Pride.

LGBTQ Pride Month is currently celebrated each year in June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City. Memorials are held during this month for members of the community who were killed in hate crimes.

“In 2019 we have seen a rise in hate crimes toward the LGBTQ community,” Demant said.

Hate crimes against LGBTQ people have been rising over the past three years, from 98 hate crimes related to gender identity recorded in 2014 to 124 recorded in 2016, according to FBI data. The agency recorded 119 hate crime incidents in 2017, the latest year that has data available.

“There used to be a veneer, minimally, to not say it, even if they think it,” said Arline Isaacson, a prominent activist who led the fight for gay marriage in Massachusetts. “And now, that veneer is gone from many people. It’s OK to think it, to believe it, to say it and support it, and that’s a real change. And, candidly, it’s a little frightening.”

A counter-protest meeting was hosted by Moishe Kavod Jewish Social Justice House on Wednesday. Participants at the meeting heard about the need to resist fascism and discuss their feelings about the parade. One attendee recalled a previous counter protest rally where he and cohorts chased white nationalist demonstrators to the train station.

“These same people demanding tolerance are the same people wanting to shut down our event,” Hugo said.

At the counter-protest meeting, “street medics,” individuals trained in basic medicine, were about to inform the group on how to apply first aid.

A group member asked if any police, media or fascists were present and asked if they could make themselves known to the group.

“We only speak to reporters that don’t interview fascists,” a representative of Moishe Kavod told MassLive. “I have to ask you to leave.”