Franklin Pride Festival Meets Fierce Resistance From ‘Christians’

The small suburb of Franklin, Tennessee (population 85,000) has held LGBTQ Pride festivals for the past two years in a public park complete with food trucks, live entertainment, vendors, and thousands of attendees. Clayton Klutts, president of the Franklin Pride organization, saw it all as the progress the LGBTQ community has made in the small, conservative town. But… With Republicans filing dozens of anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures including Tennessee, Franklin Pride is finding resistance from local residents in trying to secure a permit for the event this year. https://twitter.com/FPWellman/status/1645742707518701568 From NBC News:

What had been a procedural formality in past years has become a bitter flashpoint that mirrors similarly heated debates roiling the United States.

More than 30 people, many of them wearing circular “Choose Decency” stickers, pleaded with Franklin’s mayor and the city board’s eight aldermen to deny the pride permit.

One mother claimed that the festival was part of a coordinated national movement to groom children, attack families and destroy America. A man read a passage from the Bible about resisting “sexual immorality.”

Others baselessly linked homosexuality with pedophilia and cited the school shooting a day earlier as a reason to block the event.

“You think you are doing things based on laws,” a crying woman said, “but … you are letting Satan in.

Franklin Pride has already agreed to not host drag events at the Pride festival, but that’s not getting them over the finish line. Related: Homophobe Spews Racist Garbage While Painting Over Pride Rainbow One of the aldermen who plans to vote against Franklin Pride securing a this year to host the event on city property said she was “disturbed” by a drag performer “gyrating on stage” last year and believes Franklin Pride should be held accountable for “breaching community decency standards.” Here’s a photo from a previous Franklin Pride festival. You’ll note all the “breaching of community decency standards.” Pretty racy stuff, huh?

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