Straight Pride Parade Arrests; Allegations of police misconduct; Answers from Mayor Walsh

BOSTON— Boston Mayor Marty J. Walsh continues to receive complaints and reactions over his decision to allow the Straight Pride Parade (SPP; https://bit.ly/2ZC- CiAB) to take place last Saturday (Aug. 31) and to assign, what many considered to be, a colossal contingency of police officers (and funding) to protect the parade attendees, according to media reports and recordings. “They have a 1st Amendment right to be able to go in and march down Boylston St.,” said the Mayor via an interview with WBUR's Radio Boston on Tuesday*. “I’d love to see them not come here but unfortunately I have no way of keeping them out of Boylston St. and keep them out of marching here. If I could I would. I knew that if we went to court that that would’ve fallen right back on me in about two seconds, that that order would’ve been reestablished.” But Boston City Council Andrea J. Campbell, thinks that the current process to review and accept applicants to march in a parade should change, according to a post she shared via FB (https://bit.ly/2lw2ydO).

Campbell said that the city should review its process for approving public events after what happened at the SPP. “While I am a firm believer in free speech, I’m not okay with wasting tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars for a group to come into Boston from out of state to create chaos and spread hate. I would have preferred our taxpayer dollars be spent on community policing and violence prevention in our neighborhoods,” her post read. “This provides us with an opportunity to review our permitting process, especially with respect to organizations that are pretending to march under the guise of free speech but instead marching to promote hate, racism and bigotry, and thus incite violence.” Super Happy Fun America, aka John Hugo organizer of the Straight Pride Parade, has made his anti-LGBQ and Trans statements in the past via social media, and wanted his “straight flag” to be flown at City Hall too, Hugo said via a Fox News interview in June 2019. According to various news reports, there were approximately a few hundred participants in the SPP and over 1,000 rose up in counter-protest. The counter protest effort was spearheaded by Solidarity Against Hate-Boston (SAHB), a coalition of community groups and individuals who have been mobilizing against fascist organizing in Boston since 2017. “In the lead up to the event, we heard a lot of ‘Why are you giving these Nazis any attention? That’s what they want!’ It's a sentiment we hear pretty often, and we reject it absolutely,” stated Claudia, an SAHB activist, via a collective statement sent directly to The Rainbow Times.

The Mayor's Decision

Mayor Walsh’s interest, according to his interview with the radio station, was to uphold the city’s values while allowing the marchers to do what they, under the law, are allowed to do. “But what I’m concerned the most or upset about the most is that the Straight Pride organizers, what they want to see, is division between people … and that’s exactly what they’re starting to see now,” said the Mayor. “Our values in Boston are inclusion, acceptance, love and we need to make sure that we continue to do that and continue to pass that message along, and let people know that we’re a great city. The best parade in our city, some of the best, one of the best, is Gay Pride and I’m proud to march in that Parade every year. We don’t have problems in that parade. There’s no issues in that parade. It’s about love and respect and that’s what we have to continue to be pushing for.” But SAHB contends and agrees with Councilwoman Campbell as it pertains to the permit and the messages that SPP was being allowed to send to Bostonians and the thousands of students settling in as college season starts, as their statement con-