In May, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza struck down the Arkansas constitutional ban on gay marriage. The Arkansas Supreme Court swiftly stepped in and suspended Piazza’s ruling. The matter is still tied up in the courts and the Arkansas Legislative Council passed a resolution in June that condemned the ruling. Because of its increasingly radical stance on polarizing social issues like “gay marriage,” the Democratic Party is collapsing in Arkansas.

In response to this, the Arkansas League of the South organized a “Southern Marriage & Family Defense” rally in downtown Little Rock which took place this afternoon. Approximately 15 activists and 3 children participated in the demonstration which lasted for about two hours. The response from the public, especially from the black community, was overwhelmingly positive. There was no sign of “anti-fa” opposition in Little Rock although we caught two people filming us in a parked car.

After the demonstration was over, League members walked down the street to pose for a group photo at the Old State House. We toured the grounds of the Arkansas State Capitol and took several group photos in front of the Confederate monuments. We also took some photos at the Little Rock Nine monument. Then we ate lunch at a local restaurant and enjoyed a positive atmosphere of fellowship.

Later in the evening, we drove over to Little Rock Central High School to take a look at the building that was at the center of the 1957 desegregation crisis, and which has since been designated a National Historic Site. 57 years after the integration of Central High School, the surrounding neighborhood is a blighted ghetto of vacant lots and boarded up houses which appears to be populated by shiftless drug addicts. In the words of Little Rock City Director Ken Richardson, “it looks like somebody dropped a bomb and tore up the community.”

Before leaving Little Rock, we went back to Central High School to investigate and shot a video of the surrounding dilapidated neighborhood. It will be posted here after the film is edited and uploaded to YouTube.

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