While Heritage Park was filled with Pride flags and LGBTQ empowerment during the Taylor Pride Music and Arts Festival, protestors who were against what the event stood for surrounded the perimeter.
Those who wished to partake in the Pride festivities Saturday, June 24, first had to pass Christian-based protestors and signs with anti-LGBTQ messages. Caleb Ripple, who is the pastoral assistant at the Christ Fellowship Church in Taylor, said about 40 people were there throughout the day to perform outreach at the Pride festival.
“We love our neighbors,” Ripple said. “We understand that these folks don’t see eye-toeye with us about how we express that love, just how we don’t see eye-to-eye on how they express love. We believe in the Bible, and so we feel compelled to come out because of that.”
The protests escalate what was already a tense situation between Taylor’s LGBTQ supporters and its opposition. Last December, disagreements about participation in the annual Parade of Lights caused Taylor to host two separate Christmas parades.
The controversy stemmed from Taylor Pride being excluded from joining the parade hosted by the Taylor Area Ministerial Alliance, a Christian organization. Anticipating the animosity from Christmas to continue into Pride Day, the festival had a heavy police force for security.
Denise Rodgers, Taylor Pride president, said planning the event felt different this year because renting out Heritage Park gave the organization more control of who was allowed at the event. There was talk of making the festival a private barricaded event, but ultimately Taylor Pride chose to leave the event open due to cost and wanting to keep the event free for the community.
“We were a permitted event for the entire park,” Rodgers said. “Which means if anyone at the event were to be a harassment, disrupt the programming, impeded entrances into the event or blocked permitted retailers from doing business, then we could ask the police to step in.”
Shirlz Shumaker, the youth director and youth co-chair for Taylor Pride, believes Christians who use biblical messages to protest Pride fail to realize that not everybody is Christian. Shumaker, who is Jewish, says she feels unwelcome when hearing protestors mention Jesus to get their point across.
For instance, a recent Facebook post from Ripple promising that Taylor will be 100% Christian one day scares Shumaker.
“If you are anything other than their picture-perfect vision of Christianity, you don’t belong here,” Shumaker said. “That’s not just the LGBTQ community, that’s the minority communities around here.”
Meanwhile, Ripple says he and others that disagree in LGBTQ values are believing what Christians have believed for thousands of years. Ripple adds that they will continue to push back against LGBTQ activities in Taylor, whether it is viewed as a popular movement or not.
“If it’s us against the world, that is okay,” Ripple said. “We’re standing on the side of truth and the side of Christ.”
Standing between the Pride festival and Christian protestors Saturday was Veterans for Equality, a group of veterans that attend the events of marginalized groups and protect its participants.
Gen Peña, the president and co-founder of the Veterans for Equality, says the organization gets in between the protestors and the attendees to drown out the hate. Although the festivals did not turn violent at any point, the group consistently stayed around the edges to defend the festival.
“Everybody has a right to celebrate who they are and be who they are,” Peña said. “People are trying to take away those rights and take us back in time. We as veterans swore an oath a long time ago, so we’re trying to make sure everybody keeps their rights that my brothers and sisters lost their lives for.”
