Nine Preachers Arrested for Disrupting Gay Pride New Orleans
Nine preachers were arrested in New Orleans after yelling anti-gay slurs at Southern Decadence, an annual gay celebration in the French Quarter.
The Times-Picayune reported the arrests of Patrick O’Connell, 45; Rolando Igleasias, 31; Cesar Chavez, 22; Daniel Hoogerhuis, 26; Danny Guevera, 20; Larry Craft, 52; Montes Diego, 32; and Gary Brown, 33.
They face charges of aggressive solicitation under a city ordinance adopted last year that prohibits “any person or group of persons to loiter or congregate on Bourbon Street for the purpose of disseminating any social, political or religious message between the hours of sunset and sunrise.”
Another man was arrested for allegedly punching a police officer who tried to confiscate his bullhorn.
A spokesman for the police department, Frank Robertson, told the Times-Pic that the men had been warned not to use bullhorns but they did so anyway.
Southern Decadence was taking place Labor Day weekend.
The gay celebration – think mashup of Pride, circuit party and Mardi Gras – repeatedly has drawn anti-gay demonstrators from the fundamentalist community. One, the Rev. Grant Storms, recently was convicted of obscenity for masturbating in a park near a children's playground.
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