Christian street preacher physically attacked by homosexuals (video)

Generally I think everyone on the previous page has some good points.
I think everybody will have a different interpretation of the clip, according to their ideology (and now Youtube clips have appeared that unravel it all in opinionated detail).

One of the first ladies in the clip screams that she goes to church every Sunday, and who are the protesters to judge.
This suggests that there are several issues and gripes here.

I think the incident was wrong and regrettable, and I'd hate to see fundamentalist Christians absent from gay marches.
It gives the event an extra edge, and very quickly transports sympathizers into the daily world of being gay.
After all, including the term "homosexual" (coined in 1869) in the New Testament also partly facilitated the gay identity very rapidly.

The rest is up to US justice, and how they view things (should be interesting).

It's speculative of me to comment on the First Amendment, because so far I haven't reached a clear Google result on provocative speech at public events.
The Dearborn clip suggests that local city councils vote and decide these matters.
Exact policies can vary regionally, it seems.

I've seen widely differing clips on the matter.

Here is a Hare Krishna march by ISKCON, where a protester against what he considers "corrupt gurus" is told to leave the march by police.
Isn't this also curbing the protester's freedom of speech?


On the other hand, a protest against the murder of white farmers in South Africa was protected by police, although it was counter-protested by Occupy Oakland, eventually violently so (I'm not entirely sure why, since Project South Africa was not promoting racism, and none of the arguments by Occupy counter-protestors on SA are correct).



Perhaps the difference here is that one protest was organized, and the other was ambushed.
I'm not sure.

I think ultimately the state should then protect free speech for all groups, and neither Gay Pride or the Street Preachers should be responsible for unhinged individuals (although the individuals are responsible for their actions).

I'm not sure if that's realistic or fair on the available resources, or if a counter-protest should be allowed to over-shadow the theme of the event that day.
Just some questions this incident may raise on protests in general.

The last major issues we had at a Gay Pride was when radical lesbian feminists attempted to stop the Johannesburg Pride last year, and there were all kinds of ridiculous accusations of elitism, racism and violence.
So it's interesting to see the contrast between local issues and those in the US.

I think that everyone is overlooking the blatantly obvoius common thread in all of these vids;

Every single example of things turning sour is because of beligerant religious intolerance. Whether it be the OP vid, the Dearborn incident or the girl being pulled out of her wheelchair they all involve acts of provocation in the name of religion.

Going and pushing your religious opinion in the face of others under the pretense of free speech then crying hate crime when some dimwit loses his temper and lashes back is pure cowardess. (I say it again, I do not approve of the violence but not all folk can keep their cool under fire.)

As Jesus himself said "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" I.e. By going in to fire people up, you are throwing that first stone. God is the judge and nobody else so leave the provocation to him.