Love Obliterates Hate at LGBT Festival Inspired by Orlando Shooting

Love conquered hate in more ways than one on Saturday in Harrison, Arkansas.

In response to the terror attack that left 49 people dead at a gay Orlando nightclub in June, LGBT supporters staged the small town’s first-ever gay Pride event, with proceeds going to a fund for the Pulse victims and their families.Â

But those who attended the Harrison Pride Fest were also met by counterprotesters from the League of the South, which is considered a neo-Confederate hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.Â

Harrison, population 13,000, is often referred to as the home of the Ku Klux Klan, since national director Thomas Robb maintains his office in an outlying town and uses a Harrison mailing address.

â€œOur part of the country has been well known for bigotry and backwardness for so long, and there’s a whole lot of us who live here who donâ€™t believe like that, and we donâ€™t want to be labeled like that anymore,â€ Harrison Pride Fest attendee Cynn Parton told KFSM-TV. Â Â

Dozens of counterprotesters lined a street across from the park where the Pride Fest was held, waving Confederate flags and holding signs saying “Protect Christian Marriage.”Â Â

Another station, KY3-TV, reported that some of the signs were so mean-spirited and insulting that it refused to show them on air or in print.

A blog post promoting the counterprotest referred to the Pride Fest as “a degenerate event” where “sodomites and other sexual deviants” would gather to “celebrate their perversion.” The post also contained a veiled threat against Pride Fest attendees.Â

“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 the post wrote. “We will not allow such degeneracy to go on in our town without it being decried.”Â

On the Facebook page for the counterprotest, one person asked organizer R.G. Miller, chairman of the Arkansas League of the South, whether he should attend even though he would be armed.Â

“Come on up,” Miller responded.Â

“His law condemns this and says that it is evil and we donâ€™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,” Miller told KSFM.Â

But Pride Fest attendees had the perfect response.Â

Pride Fest organizer Alexx Breedlove, who was singled out by name in the hateful post promoting the counterprotest, told KSFM she was unfazed by the League of the South’s presence.Â

“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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Image via FacebookÂ