LGBT groups were up in arms in condemning the white nationalist rally that took place in Charlottesville, VA over the weekend.
The rally, which later turned violent as counter-protesters clashed with the white nationalists, left one counter-protester, Heather Heyer, dead after after rallyist James Alex Fields drove his car into the crowd.
19 others were injured in the same attack. President Donald Trump had decried the violence but pinned the blame on both sides.
The white nationalists that attended the rally, while supporting a racist agenda, are also known for being anti-LGBT with reports indicating that anti-gay slurs were heard from the rallyists as they marched.
White nationalist rally supports hate
One of the LGBT-advocacy organizations that spoke up against the ‘Unite the Right’ rally by white nationalists was Equality Virginia.
“Intimidating communities with taunts and violence has no place here. Anyone who doesn’t strongly condemn the Unite for the Right rally is complicit in supporting this dangerous and racist agenda,” EV Executive Director James Parrish told the Washington Blade in a statement.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin tweeted “hate and bigotry on display in Charlottesville must be challenged wherever it rears its ugly head. This is not us. America is not this.”
In response to President Donald Trump’s statement, Griffin said: “Hate and bigotry must never be met with silence or half-hearted rebukes.”
“The violence we are witnessing is horrifying, but is merely the latest manifestation of the growing racist, anti-immigration, anti-Semitic, sexist and anti-LGBTQ hate in our midst,” said Stacey Long Simmons, Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Advocacy and Action Department.
Trump was on vacation at his golf course when he held a press conference to issue his statetement.
Lambda Legal Executive Director Rachel Tiven said the rally was “against the rest of the country: against the polyglot, racially and religiously diverse America that is real and the truth. And they are absolutely marching against LGBT people of all colors.”
GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis told Variety: “This is the dangerous culture that having a Bully in Chief in the White House has created. President Trump needs to take a break from the golf course and denounce these hate rallies immediately with clear and strong language.”
White nationalist rally supports bigotry
The white nationalists, who call themselves the alt-right while others more critical call them neo-Nazis, had come together to protest the pulling down of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville.
A Friday night march was held while some of the rallyists were heard shouting during the Saturday August 12 rally: “Fuck you, faggots.”
Meanwhile, Fields of Maumee, Ohio, the driver of the car that hit counter-protesters, was associated with a right-wing group that calls LGBT people as “sexual deviants.”
He had also been spotted with other white nationalist rallyists.
The white nationalists held signs that referred to the KKK, as well as Confederate and Nazi flags. They also carried associated with extreme right-wing groups,
However, as one sign held by the counter-protester crowd said: “KKK = Homophobic Terrorism.’
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