BOISE, Idaho — A minor confrontation broke out at the controversial “Hetero Awesome Fest” on Saturday when a protester took the stage and began singing a pro-LGBTQ+ song before being removed.
According to several livestreams of the event, including those from Old Street Saloon, the incident occurred during the two-day festival held on June 20-21 in Cecil D. Andrus Park, directly across from the Idaho State Capitol. Mark Fitzpatrick, owner of the Old State Saloon and organizer of the event, rushed the stage and took the microphone from the man after about a minute of singing.
Hetero awesome fest
looks inside
Closeted gay men
I grew up in Idaho. Can confirm, that’s basically the whole population.
This reminds me of a straight pride event titled “Hetero Pride” that was organized in Finland way back in 2013. One of the organizers was a deputy city councillor and a Finns Party member. He claimed how society and the media over-emphasized homosexuality, calling it “homozation”. He also claimed how it was hard to defend the traditional family model without being labelled homophobic and racist.
The event was held near the Parliament House in Helsinki. There were whole a lot more counter-protesters and some came to the event mainly because it was more like “popcorn pride”. One of the speakers at the event literally said in his speech how “we don’t have anything against homosexuals, but…” and another said something about how “the Bible states that marriage is only between a man and a woman”. One speaker was later asked about “what privileges do gays have these days”, and he just replied “I have to be honest, I can’t say anything about that”.
“The tiger can’t change its stripes”. One of the organizers later posed in a picture with five other men who made a Nazi salute – one of them was Seppo Lehto, an infamous Neo-Nazi. He had also made a Nazi salute in another picture, this time wearing a Hitler mask. When called out, he said “I’m not in that picture. I wasn’t there. I don’t know where these kinds of clips came from.” He later admitted being in the picture, claiming how he hadn’t made a Nazi salute: “It’s just a normal salute with the left hand. The official Nazi salute is with the right hand at a 45 degree angle.”
The explanation wasn’t enough for the Finns Party, and as a consequence he was fired from the party’s regional council because of homophobia. Later he also resigned from the party.
I walked through that not realizing what it was. I saw a bunch of kids bouncy houses and there was some terrible country music on a stage. Friends and i were like what is this pitiful conservative day in the park bs and kept walking. We didn’t notice any anti pride stuff but just the vibe was pitiful maga people with vendor tents but i didn’t even see a maga flag either. We were just passing through boise for the first time and got beers nearby. Then a friend saw it on front page of Reddit after we left Boise and we were like holy shit that’s what it was
This has big “why can’t I also have a cake and gifts” energy.
A party full of people that are so unsure and afraid of their sexuality that they have to gather together and make a point of it to the world that they are really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really not gay, not even a little bit bi, absolutely bit bi at all!
Okay then, hope you guys have fun, then! Don’t check what’s happening behind the toilets, though!
Dozens lol
There’s dozens of us!
Heteros cant be pro lgbtq+ now?
Should rename it to bigot festival. Cant call it hetero with all the closest gays it attracts.
Closeted Bro Convention
This sounds like, in the best case, it’d be like one of those Christian alternative-rock festivals, organised to demonstrate that you don’t need the Devil’s music to have fun, where you have bands playing watered-down, Jesused-up versions of punk/emo/metal and some dad in Vans and a studded belt taking the mike between bands to tell everyone that the raddest thing is to obey your parents and abstain from drugs and premarital sex.
A more likely scenario, though, would involve this being to some extent an anti-wokeness hate rally, with conspiracy theories about how the foundations of Western Civilisation are under threat from the gays and communists and, of course, (((those people))).
I don’t see why we don’t steal heterosexuality from these dumb fucks and add it to the queer community. Literally make it “OK with people who have preference” against “hates preference” if we stop letting them hide bigotry behind normal things, they can’t keep pretending they’re not bigots.
Just have some delicious drag queen tell them in a husky voice “Babydoll, you see that white triangle hiding in the back on the fancy Pride Flag? That’s for all you vanilla-ass straight motherfuckers. You already ON the pride flag. You’re part of this shit already! Welcome to the party, it’s already going hard, and it’s your turn to sing ;)”
My dude, this post goes so hard it made me blush.
🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🏴☠️
Random straight white dude here. I’m good with this. If my choices are either be included with the LGBQT+ crowd which also includes straight guys, OR be thought of as part of the hateful group who only includes themselves?
I’d rather be part of the LGBTQ+ group. My view has always been you be you, and let others be others. When you start hating others for being themselves, you’re probably the problem. Unless that other person is a nazi or pedophile. Because fuck those guys.
Ideally we don’t fuck those guys, we can’t risk them reproducing.
Why the hell does the link just redirect me to their YouTube channel?
Edit: Seems to do that only with EU countries, other countries’ IPs work. Probably don’t want to deal with privacy protection.
Unfortunately, a lot of local American news sources have opted out of serving pages to the EU for privacy reasons. Kind of disturbing what that means for Americans.
We’re all victims of American capitalism
If I were to guess, it’s because they don’t wanna deal with hosting global amounts of video traffic, so for international links, it just forwards it to YouTube, which is much better suited for that.
Then it would be US only. But it works for example with Switzerland (non-EU).
Not necessarily. They can have a redirect link without necessarily blocking the original link. There are ways to redirect traffic based on where it’s from it doesn’t mean it becomes impossible to access that source directly.
Well now I want to know what the song was.
Ram Ranch
Just guessing.
I was gonna guess this
Pink Pony Club.
Just guessing.
YMCA
Just guessing
I kissed a girl
Just guessing
Anything Jake Hole.
Just guessing
“I love you Mr. Hole.” Him, Digbar, and Alex Schor are kinda great ngl. Digbar was my number 3 artist on Spotify wrapped.
Boys, I da ho, sounds very straight to me
I feel like this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but… really, I don’t see a problem with these people having this event, and I think the person who got up to sing the pro-LGBTQ+ song was in the wrong here. But let me explain before you crucify me.
It’s pride month, and they have anti-LGBTQ+ views. Holding their own event for people with similar views is by far preferable to going and causing problems at pride events, and while I don’t agree with their views, I support their freedom to hold them, given they aren’t causing problems for others, which it sounds like they weren’t.
An LGBTQ+ person “crashing” their event isn’t really any different from an anti-LGBTQ+ person crashing a pride event, which I’d obviously have a problem with, so I think it’d be somewhat hypocritical to applaud someone for doing it to these people, however much I disagree with their viewpoint.
Edit: Yep, knew it’d be unpopular. Rather than just downvoting me, though, why not tell me why you disagree?
I think they should be allowed to have this festival and also I think I should be allowed to crash it and fuck a load into the cheating closeted husbands
“Not gay, just SSA.” Go to Salt Lake. You’ll find plenty of them.
Edit: Yep, knew it’d be unpopular. Rather than just downvoting me, though, why not tell me why you disagree?
Because I don’t even know where to start. The biggest part, I suppose, is that if you give them a space like this, it normalizes the movement. People stop feeling like there is something wrong with disliking the LGBT community, the movement grows as it is no longer stigmatized, and LGBT rights backslide.
Furthermore, holding a “hetero pride” festival during pride month is inherently bigoted as well. Pride month exists because straight people wouldn’t let gay people express themselves otherwise. Your idea isn’t totally unlike the idea of letting klansmen openly hold festivals during Black History month so they stop harassing black people.
I’m against giving hatred and bigotry a platform. It’s like saying “let the Nazis have their event, I support their freedom to gather, as long as they’re not causing problems for others.”
Them gathering is causing problems. We’re on the forefront of changing centuries of human rights violations, and tolerating other people’s intolerance will only get in the way of real change.
To start with your first sentence is stupid and it goes downhill from there. Pride moth exists as a response to being silenced and prosecuted for centuries. Straight people don’t need an event to show they deserve to exist because they already run the show and having an event to celebrate as a counter to pride month is just rubbing in historical oppression. Crashing each other’s events is nowhere near the same thing due to context.
A hetero celebration event during pride month is like having a confederate celebration on Juneteenth.
That is why you are being downvoted, and nobody else explained because odds are you won’t understand and just dig your heels in deeper.
PRIDE MOTH YOU SAY
I think my viewpoint is akin to the Nazi bar analogy. I don’t want to drink at a Nazi bar, but I’m glad the Nazi bar exists, because it gives the Nazis somewhere to go that’s isolated and away from everyone else. I’d rather these people hold their own event and congregate there than go protest at a pride parade or whatever else they might be doing, and I don’t think ‘kicking the hornet’s nest’ by trying to disrupt them is really helping anyone. Case in point, I’d never heard about them before, and wouldn’t have if this article hadn’t been written, which it wouldn’t have been if nobody had crashed the event.
I don’t want to drink at a Nazi bar, but I’m glad the Nazi bar exists, because it gives the Nazis somewhere to go that’s isolated and away from everyone else.
What a terrible opinion to have.
WTF, the Nazi bar analogy wasn’t supposed to be in support of the creation of Nazi bars. Are you okay? Did you recently hit your head? What the fuck have you been smoking?
I’m glad the Nazi bar exists, because it gives the Nazis somewhere to go that’s isolated and away from everyone else.
You never EVER give hateful ideologies room to breathe and organize. It spreads like a virus if you don’t kill it on the spot.
I mean, they are calling it a “Hetero Awesome” event. Which is fine, as straight people are awesome! But so are the gays.
If these folks are so triggered by someone singing a pro-LGBTQ+ song, though, it makes me think it was never about how awesome anyone is in the first place. It seems more to be about “Gays are not awesome like we are” than “We’re awesome”. See how the message is different?
I bet if a Straight Ally showed up at a Pride event singing a song about how awesome Straight People are, nobody would have a problem with that, as long as it wasn’t trying to dunk on some other group in the process.
(Now, that is leading me to wonder what the most “Hetero Awesome” song might be. What song would you pick as the Straight People Anthem?)
Wonderwall. It’s Wonderwall.
After all
Yep. You’re meant to incarcerate or banish people you don’t like. Going to where they congregate to attack or shame them is a very unwise move. Let them have their little groups, away from normal people