Joe.My.God. LGBT News
The Associated Press reports:
An Ohio school says an internal dispute over security prompted a last-minute cancellation of a weekend children’s storytelling event featuring performers in drag amid a planned protest by a far-right group.
The Red Oak Community School’s “Holi-Drag Storytime” event was to have been held Saturday morning at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus, where the school is based. The Ohio Chapter of the Proud Boys last month announced plans to attend and protest the event.
About 50 to 70 members of the Proud Boys and other groups had gathered on the sidewalk on roads leading to the church, shouting, chanting and holding signs.
Matter News reports:
Previously, the Columbus and Central Ohio LGBTQ+ Leadership Roundtable, a group that consists of Stonewall Columbus, Kaleidoscope Youth Center, HRC Columbus, Equitas Health and LoveBoldly, requested that the community not show up to counterprotest the Proud Boys at the Holi-Drag event.
“This situation is potentially volatile and dangerous, and the safety of the children, families, performers and our community are of paramount importance,” the Leadership Roundtable said in a statement. “Our actions must be in service to their protection.”
See the final video below for today’s message from the event’s organizers. Give the tweets below a minute to fully load.
Patriot Front has just arrived outside the cancelled drag storytime event in Columbus, Ohio pic.twitter.com/0Ew4Yn6NoX
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) December 3, 2022
Proud Boys have arrived outside the church where the drag storytime event was to be held here in Columbus, Ohio pic.twitter.com/NTVeRgH4l3
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) December 3, 2022
Several armed individuals show up at the protest across from the church. They did not say any specific group affiliation, Columbus Police came over to speak with them briefly and request safe firearm handling pic.twitter.com/BEZqCutn0F
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) December 3, 2022
Proud Boys team up with Neo Nazis of Patriot Front and White Lives Matter to protest a Drag Story Time in Columbus Ohio pic.twitter.com/WKOK2ouhV4
— Johnn Thelefty (@Johnnthelefty) December 3, 2022
Chants of “Feds!” from the Proud Boys as Patriot Front marches past them outside the church pic.twitter.com/Q1ck976Yut
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) December 3, 2022
A planned Holi-Drag Storytime event has been cancelled in Ohio after the Columbus Proud Boys announced plans to protest this Saturday morning. Fencing blocking off the parking lot and cancellation notices have been put up outside the venue at First Unitarian Universalist Church pic.twitter.com/0a4uXYlyQe
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) December 3, 2022
Police officers, about a dozen and a half in number, stationed a couple blocks away from the protest here in Columbus pic.twitter.com/ItFK3SYdCS
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) December 3, 2022
Interactions between a few counter-protesters and the Proud Boys outside the church. Organizers of the drag storytime had requested people not counter-protest the Proud Boys, and only a handful of people showed up outside the church to do so throughout the morning pic.twitter.com/gNkUdFW7EL
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) December 3, 2022
Patriot Front chanting in front of residential homes in Columbus’s Clintonville neighborhood pic.twitter.com/RRPTguufB3
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) December 3, 2022
The group ‘White Lives Matter Ohio’ is out a couple blocks from the church, with some doing Sieg Heil salutes in Columbus pic.twitter.com/gbj4zgydo8
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) December 3, 2022
Some interactions between Proud Boys and passing cars along the road outside the First Unitarian Universalist Church pic.twitter.com/aniRPobynt
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) December 3, 2022