The President of the Quesnel Pride Society says they strongly condemn the distribution of hate flyers in the city this past weekend.
Here, Alison Prentice explains.
“Flyers were placed on at least 60 vehicles, plus we learned that these same flyers were distributed to some of the businesses in the downtown. And they’re misinformed, they’re taken out of context and they are really hateful messages directed at our Mistress of Ceremonies, our drag queen for the after party that is coming this summer.”
Prentice says the headline is ‘Coming soon to Quesnel Frieda Whales-Is this person really family friendly ?’, and then they have drag story time with Freida Whales.
“Well we don’t have Frieda hired for drag story time. She’s hired to be our MC and to be part of a drag show for the Quesnel after party, the Pride after party on June 10th, which is not family friendly because it is an over-19 event.”
Prentice says the flyers even refer to videos depicting murders that include cannibalism and satanic rituals.
“Number one, those were art videos done under the alter ego of “Killer Whales” and they were behind an age restricted website. Somebody had to go into this age restricted website, pull them out and then take them out of context saying this is what Freida is doing all the time. It was done as a music video.”
Prentice says that’s like saying that any actor who plays the character of a serial killer or a zombie shouldn’t be around children.
“It’s absurd the message that they’re putting out here, and really disturbing.”
Prentice says they are encouraging people to call local politicians and also provided their e-mail address.
“I guess the hope is they would send us hate mail, and they’ve put down various website links for Frieda. They’ve been attacking Freida in Kelowna, they’ve been now attacking Frieda here, and I think it’s despicable that it’s all done anonymously. If you’re going to have a problem with it, put your name out there. Don’t distribute this stuff anonymously, that’s just wrong. Don’t be sneaky and sly and take things out of context.”
Prentice says they believe that local people were also involved with the distribution of this material and a report has been filed with the RCMP.
If there is one positive out of all of this, Prentice says it’s that the protest has had the opposite effect.
“We’ve had an increase in the number of people signing up for memberships in support. We’ve had an increase in people wanting to be on the Board of Directors saying that it’s time they get involved again with this stuff going on. And we’ve had a few e-mails that are in support and condemning the flyers that got circulated.”
Prentice says her concern is that this builds into protests that get ugly over the summer when Frieda is in town for the party.