City Hall gathering calls for unity amid ‘homophobia’ aimed at Fresno’s LGBTQ community

Love, perseverance and tolerance were key themes at a rally Wednesday morning that attracted about 70 people from Fresno’s LGBTQ+ community and supporters at Fresno City Hall’s front plaza.

The rally was a response to a simultaneous event orchestrated by conservatives just a short distance away at Eaton Plaza.

There was also recent controversy after Fresno Councilmember Garry Bredefeld said he was offended by a prayer that was said when the Pride flag was raised at Fresno City Hall.

Among those attending Wednesday’s event outside City Hall were clergy from several Fresno churches who offered messages of acceptance and inclusiveness.

“What brings me out today is the unfairness of being judged, as being the scapegoat for a lot of homo- and transphobia that’s rampant nowadays,” said Rosio Velasco-Stoll, director of the Fresno Spectrum Center and a drag performer under the stage name Rosio De La Rosa.

“What is being said by the opposition is totally false,” Velasco Stoll added of the characterization of drag performers.

“A lot of them have never attended a family-friendly (drag) event where we are actually under strict rules of what is to be performed , what music is going to be allowed and also costumes.”

“They’re just going off of whatever they see on ‘Ru Paul’s Drag Race’ or on Facebook,” she added.

Meanwhile, the event at Eaton Plaza in downtown Fresno kicked off around 10 a.m. Wednesday. There, a group of local pastors decried a number of Pride events happening in Fresno.

Led by Cornerstone Church Senior Pastor Jim Franklin, the group of about 50 pastors and elected officials spoke out against the raising of the Pride flag at Fresno City Hall and an upcoming private event at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo featuring performances by drag queens.

At City Hall, many in the crowd waved rainbow Pride flags or wore rainbow insignia on their clothing — including Rabbi Laura Novak Winer, a member of Temple Beth Israel in Fresno, wearing a rainbow kippah — a skullcap worn by members of the Jewish faith.

“I’m here embracing all of the families in Fresno who take all sorts of different shapes and configurations, supporting people in living out their full, divinely-inspired identities,” Novak Winer told The Fresno Bee before the rally began.

Another faith leader, the Rev. Simon Biasell of Fresno’s Woven Community Church, defended the zoo from the conservative criticism. “I’m here in support of the Chaffee Zoo for making an effort to make sure everyone in our city feels like they belong,” Biasell told The Bee, “especially those in the LGBTQ community who have felt excluded for too long.”

Others in the crowd took offense at the characterization that the LGBTQ+ community poses a threat to families and children.

“I’m angry that they think we want to hurt children. It’s literally just going to the zoo and there’s drag queens,” said Crow Fitzpatrick, who attended the City Hall rally. “It’s really upsetting that these homophobic and transphobic people think we’re dangerous; we’re just trying to live our lives.”

“If anything, we feel like we’re in danger when people who hate us for existing make us feel like we’re not safe,” Fitzpatrick added.

The Rev. Bill Knezovich, pastor of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Fresno, told the crowd that he, too, is gay and was disturbed by a letter distributed by a conservative pastor “in which he called us all perverts, basically.”

“My concern is the dehumanization that those folks over there (at Eaton Plaza) are bringing to the LGBTQ+ community and really misrepresenting our view of a loving God,” Knezovich told The Bee. “They’re substituting a hateful, vengeful God that excludes anyone who they don’t feel or seem appropriate. I’m here to take a stand about that.”

Several speakers addressed remarks posted to social media recently by Bredefeld, who decried the zoo event for the LGBTQ community as “despicable” and “evil.”

“The despicable efforts to sexualize our children continues at the Zoo with ‘Family Friendly Drag Performances’ where children can ‘meet and greet with the queens after the show,’” Bredefeld said in a June 15 post on Twitter. “This kind of evil crap presented to children must end and we must unite to put a stop to it. Now.”

Tyler Mackey, a gay parent and member of the Stonewall Democrats in Fresno, said Bredefeld’s comments represent a danger because they signal that “we should be treated as if our lives were not as important, as if we were subhuman.”

“When you sow division, you are dishonoring the very office that you hold,” Mackey said. “(Bredefeld) has demonstrated through his words and his actions that he is unfit to serve in this building that is the people’s building.”

“We are here to remind people that we are here, that we do exist, and that we are just like them,” Mackey added. “We have families, we are parents, we are children, we are community leaders.”

The Rev. Tim Kutzmark of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno was pointed in his criticism of fellow pastors who condemn rather than embrace members of the LGBTQ community. “I believe the purpose of religion is to bring people together with love, not separate us with hate and condemnation,” Kutzmark told The Bee. “Evangelical Christian pastors do not have a monopoly on the message of Jesus’ all-inclusive love. They see it in a very narrow way. Jesus taught an all-inclusive love.”

“Jesus loves everybody, and there are no second class citizens for Jesus,” added the Rev. Nancy Key, deacon of Fresno’s St. James Episcopal Cathedral. “The Jesus I read in the Bible would in no way exclude people. That is absolutely anti-Jesus.”

This story was originally published June 22, 2022 at 11:35 AM.