California ‘straight pride’ march hit by violent clashes with pro-LGBT counter-protesters

A straight pride march in front of an abortion clinic in California turned into violence when attendees clashed with counter-protesters and police.

The National Straight Pride Coalition touted the event as a celebration of “heterosexuality, masculinity, femininity, babies – born and unborn and Western straight civilization, our beautiful country and Christianity.”

Promising a calm organized march, founder Don Grundmann told the Modesto City Council in early August: ‘We are a peaceful group, we wanted to hold a meeting. We are attacked as racist. We are a completely peaceful racist group.’

But it soon turned into violence as angry pro-LGBT rights groups clashed with officers deployed to keep the peace during the event.

On Saturday morning, on the corner of McHenry and West Orangeburg Avenues, the group was joined by the sympathetic right-wing group the Proud Boys, who helped organize the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

A large contingent of LGBTQ and pro-choice counter-protesters who took offense at the message behind the march also showed up — and violence ensued.

Skirmishes broke out between the groups, with counter-protesters draped in rainbow-colored capes and carrying placards reading “Only the battle has won – Women’s Rights,” “Fascists not welcome,” and “Straight Pride is Hate Pride.”

LGBTQ protesters threw bottles and waved plates on sticks at Straight Pride members in one heated clash, driving them away from the clinic to a local Wendy’s parking lot.

A flash grenade or fireworks went off, setting the bush near the abortion clinic on fire, filling the air with white smoke.

Police in riot gear – helmets, shields and batons – arrived to drive back the LGBTQ counter-protesters and disperse the groups.

There was a brief stalemate in the parking lot of the Planned Parenthood clinic with a police phalanx popping up against a wall of LGBTQ protesters.

Police were seen aiming and firing shotguns armed with pepperballs – hard plastic projectiles – at the crowd. Authorities drove the counter-protesters back to a local parking lot where they dispersed.

“We have two armies to stand up to when we stand up for our rights: we have to deal with the police attacking us, and we are about to have a second wave of right-wing extremists. We’re afraid they’ll attack us too,” Odette Zapata, who came from Sacramento as part of a caravan against the Straight Pride Coalition march, told the Modesto Bee.

Police told the newspaper that three people have been arrested in the violence, two members of the Proud Boys and an LGBTQ counter-protester for failing to pay.