Man Yelling Bible Verses at Pride Event Arrested

A man was arrested for disorderly conduct after shouting Bible verses to protest at a Pride event despite warnings from police.

The incident took place on Tuesday morning at a public Pride Month event in Reading, a Pennsylvania city located roughly 64 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The man, Damon Atkins, was captured on video in an altercation with police patrolling near the event after he attempted to shout a verse from Corinthians.

"Let them have their day," an officer said to Atkins. "Respect it."

"You know who's cheering for us? The people that are in hell," the man responded. "So, you do you, and I'm going to do me. This is public property."

The officer, as seen in the clip, briefly moved to stand between Atkins and the crowd at the event, but turned back as he resumed reading the verse and arrested him.

"That's it. You're done," the officer said.

Atkins claimed that he was within his rights during the altercation, as the event was taking place on public property. As can be seen in the video, he carried a sign that read, "God said go and sin no more" and was wearing a shirt reading, "You must be born again."

Newsweek reached out to the Reading Police Department via email for comment.

The incident in Reading comes in the midst of a renewed right-wing backlash against the visibility of LGBTQ+ individuals and communities in public life, spurred on by a relatively small number of far-right online activists. A number of high-profile brands and companies have faced calls for boycotts from conservatives over recent partnerships with LGBTQ+ spokespersons, or for participating in Pride Month festivities in any way, including events and product lines.

"This is economic terrorism, literally terrorism, creating fear among the workers and forcing the corporations to sell the things you want, not sell the things you don't," Justin Wolfers, a professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Michigan, said during a recent interview with MSNBC.

Responding to an inquiry from the conservative news outlet, the Daily Caller, the Reading Police Department said that Atkins was not arrested for reciting Bible verses, but rather for disorderly conduct due to his volume.

"He was not arrested for reading a bible verse," a police spokesperson told the outlet. "He was arrested for being disorderly. His volume was at a level that he was heckling a preplanned and permitted event. He was given an area he was allowed to protest in, and was asked to keep volume at a level that was not problematic or that was inciting public inconvenience."