SAFFORD — Attendees to the Gila Valley’s first Pride event were greeted by a protest Saturday.
Saturday morning, a pick-up truck with a large sign in the truck’s bed was parked in front of the Graham County Democratic Headquarters on 5th Avenue in Safford. The sign said to “Vote out the Godless Democrats,” and quoted Isaiah 1:15 to those who would “vote Democrat/abortion.”
Because the protest did not use hate speech or call for violence, Graham County Democratic Party Chairman Nick Nordgran-Tellez said he did not seek to have the sign removed from in front of headquarters.
“It is, at its core, what our system is about. They’re voicing a protest. I welcome that sort of thing,” he said.
Nordgran-Tellez said he didn’t know if the protest was focused on Democrats in general or had chosen Saturday because of the gathering that night of LGBTQ+ members of the community and allies for that evening’s Pride event.
Regardless of intent, the sign seemed to have no effect, as about two-dozen community members gathered to celebrate, a number Nordgran-Tellez called “heartwarming.”
“I love to see people that I haven’t met before. These are new people who have come out into the community because of the LGBTQ organizing that I’ve been doing and the Democratic Party has been doing,” Nordgran-Tellez said. “The hope is to grow this into something much larger, where we’re hundreds of people rather than 10 to 25 people.”
