Christian fundamentalist Rev. Grant Storms, 53, protester of the largest gay event in New Orleans, the Southern Decadence festival, was arrested for obscenity at Lafreniere Park, New Orleans.

Mr Storm said he was urinating in a bottle on his lunch break, but two witnesses say they saw him masturbating. His bail was set at $5,000 but he was released due to overcrowding at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center jail.

Southern Decadence organiser, Chuck Robinson, told the Times-Picayune: “He’s done everything through the years to disturb [the festival] and try to make it into something nasty.

“If the Rev. Storms is caught doing that in our city, it is ludicrous and heinous that he would have the nerve to complain about any kind of sexuality.”

According to the Advocate, “Storms has orchestrated counter-events for Southern Decadence in the past, and in 2004, filed a lawsuit against gay rights group Action Wisconsin for defamation, but the suit was thrown out of court. He has also been an advocate for cleaning up the French Quarter, and has gone as far as filming sexual acts that took place during Southern Decadence, and screening his videos to lawmakers as a way to coerce them to stop allowing the annual festival from taking place.”