Photos and Videos Show Street Preacher and Anti-LGBT Activist Flip Benham Arguing With Festival Attendees and Charlotte Mecklenburg Police
Anti-LGBT activist Flip Benham attended Charlotte Pride Saturday with a small group of fellow street preachers to cause a disruption as the event began. Benham, who is the father of anti-LGBT Christian activists David and Jason Benham, had a set of speakers attached to the back of a truck and as speakers on the main stage began he started preaching through a microphone, effectively competing with the stage’s speakers.
Here’s Benham in a battle of the speakers, calling for all to “repent.”
Charlotte Pride was expected to draw 120,000 people into the city, and the festival was declared an extraordinary event by Charlotte Mecklenburg Police.
Despite the increased police presence, Benham was also able to walk through part of the festival before he started speaking.
He got into a confrontation with Dara Schweitzer, a volunteer at the Carolinas Care booth, after she offered him a condom.
When two CMP officers stepped in to monitor the situation, Benham asked them why they weren’t reprimanding the volunteers for giving out condoms, since she was handing them out without asking anyone their age. North Carolina does not have an age restriction on purchasing condoms.
Benham insisted that the volunteers “could be handing condoms to four-year olds†and that CMP was doing nothing to stop it. Even as she was speaking with Benham, Sweitzer kept offering condoms to passersby.
After an extended argument Benham went to the parking lot to preach. The festival continued and even as speakers acknowledged Benham and his stunt, it did nothing to stop the event from continuing as planned.
And here are Charlotte Pride speakers and the audience say, “Stand up fight back!”Â
Â
All images and video ©2016 Carlyle Addy. Used here by permission.
Â