Pride marches are scheduled for Kelowna Saturday and Penticton Sunday.

Image Credit: Okanagan Pride Society

As the LGBTQ+ communities in Kelowna and Penticton celebrate Pride Week this year, they are under attack like never before in recent times.

A new rainbow crosswalk in front of a Penticton elementary school was vandalized by skid marks multiple times late last month.

READ MORE: Opening ceremony for inclusive Penticton crosswalk marred by vandalism

In January, a small group of protesters picketed Drag Queen Story Time at Kelowna’s downtown library with Frieda Whales.

A potential weapon was seized from one of the protesters who were heavily outnumbered by supporters, Wilbur Turner, chairman of the pro-gay Advocacy Canada board of directors, told iNFOnews.ca.

READ MORE: How Drag Story Time became a thing at Kelowna’s downtown library

“The protesters that came out were not nice people,” Turner said. “They were pretty horrific with their messages. One woman came up to me and told me I was going to die.”

It’s not just the Okanagan where this is happening. Earlier this week, a US group called Human Rights Campaign declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in that country.

READ MORE: LGBTQ+ Americans are under attack, Human Rights Campaign declares in state of emergency warning

“We have our issues here, but I don’t think it’s quite that bad at all,” Turner said adding, however, that Kelowna is a particular target of attack.

"Action4Canada, out of BC, is very focused on Kelowna and on the school system,” he said. “They’re trying to recruit people to run for trustee in the next election and for all levels of government. This is very anti-LGBTQ so it’s very concerning that they’re focusing on Kelowna to do that.”

The Action4Canada website lists three BC cities where it holds weekly events. One is every Tuesday in front of NDP MP Richard Canning’s Penticton office. One is on an overpass in Delta.

The other is every Saturday in Stuart Park in Kelowna where they join with David Lindsay and other protesters who have rallied against COVID measures throughout the pandemic.

There is even a lengthy article on their website by Lindsay giving his side of a current court case against him in which he is charged for assault when he tried to force his way into an Interior Health building during a 2021 protest.

The City of Kelowna is trying to get an injunction to prevent the weekly Saturday rallies.

Action4Canada has a wide range of issues it attacks, from the 15 Minute City concept to gay rights.

READ MORE: On the road to 15 minute cities in Kamloops and the Okanagan

“Their (LGBTQ's) objective is forced compliance and acceptance of their adult sexual proclivities and ideologies,” the website says. “The UN is involved in this agenda and they are targeting children. The UN has mandated that all member nations implement the ‘Comprehensive Sexuality Education’ resource. This ‘resource’ sexualizes children at the earliest age possible. This is causing great harm to minors and is an attack against the traditional family unit. Silence is not an option. The very well-being of our children is at stake.”

Turner goes so far as to say Action4Canada believes transgender rights are being promoted by big pharma and it's an effort to depopulate the world.

Not that long ago, gay rights were mainstream where TV shows prominently featured gay and lesbian characters and businesses competed openly for LGBTQ+ customers.

But the pendulum has swung far in the other direction since the ascent of social media, Donald Trump and legalization of gay marriages.

One of the main targets these days are transgender and non-binary people.

“This is a wedge issue they think they can get public sympathy for in order to come after the queer community because we’re seeing more kids in the schools now that are identifying as trans or non-binary,” Turner said. “So, they’re attacking it based on trying to protect children. They’re not trying to protect children at all. It’s just a door opener to erase, basically, the visibility of the whole queer community. They don’t want us to be visible and they’re fighting it in the schools.”

He pointed out that transgendered people are not necessarily gay or lesbian or straight but they do have gender identity issues.

“Their (Action4Canada’s) talking points are to dehumanize the trans community so people will hate them because hate is easier if you don’t see people as human,” Turner said. “That’s just the methodology that they’re using. It’s very harmful. That’s why we’re trying to fight back against it and educate people on the fact that trans people are just regular people doing the same things everybody else does.”

One way to fight back is through annual Pride weeks or months around the world.

Those dates are not consistent but a Government of Canada website says Pride Season runs from June to September.

In Vernon it's held from Aug. 7-13 and in Kamloops it’s Aug. 21-27.

But, in Penticton and Kelowna it’s this week with the keynote Pride marches scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Saturday in Stuart Park in Kelowna and 1 p.m. on Sunday in Penticton, starting at the S.S. Sicamous.

All the cities feature a wide variety of Pride events throughout their Pride weeks.

“We need our allies to come out and show support and solidarity against this more than ever,” Turner said. “We do know, of the thousands of people that did come out to the Pride March in the past, there have been a lot of allies there. It’s really great to see that kind of support in terms of the community responding to this.”

He estimates that the number of organizations at the Pride Festival has quadrupled this year.

Plans are also afoot to carry the message long past this week with billboards being prepared for Lake Country and West Kelowna.

That’s funded by a GoFundMe campaign that has raised more than $6,500 so far with a target of $9,000.

Turner promises these billboards won’t carry the same tone of messages as the anti-gay sign that had a short life span in West Kelowna earlier this year.

READ MORE: Billboard company defends West Kelowna ad as free speech

“We’ve commissioned an Indigenous queer artist locally here to do the artwork for the billboards and we have a focus group that has met and come up with the messaging and theme for it,” Turner said. “Our billboard is going to be positive messaging. It’s not trying to attack any particular group of people. It’s just to create belonging and positivity in the face of all the stuff that’s going on.”

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