Religious Group Targets Teen Gay Pride Event At King Co. Library

RENTON, WA — After a week when gay Pride displays have been vandalized in Renton and Seattle, a religious group is aiming to shut down a teen Pride event at the Renton King County Library slated for Saturday.

On Thursday, a Christian media personality named Elizabeth Johnston urged her nearly 700,000 Facebook followers to contact the King County Library System to get the teen Pride event cancelled. Johnston took particular issue with the event offering safe sex tips, and because there will be a raffle offering a breast binder, which transgender men use to flatten breasts.

"Locals should threaten to picket them daily for pandering obscenity to minors!" Johnston wrote in the post.

Many of Johnston's recent Facebook posts are about shutting down LGBTQ or Pride events across the U.S. The post also includes a photo of a nearly naked man dressed in drag. That image, however, has no affiliation with the Renton library event, according to KCLS.

But the protest comes at the end of a week of anti-LGBTQ incidents in Puget Sound. Most notably, a Pride display at the United Christian Church in Renton was damaged in an arson, and the FBI has been called in to investigate.

On Monday, there was a protest at the Des Moines library because of a Drag Queen Story Hour — although some 200 parents and kids attended, according to KING 5. Last weekend, Pride artwork hung at the Capitol Hill light rail station was torn down, according to the city of Seattle.

KCLS spokeswoman Sarah Thomas said that the Renton teen Pride event will go head as planned. The event kicks off at 1 p.m. on Saturday with advice panels, karaoke, safe sex presentations, a drag show, and more. Visit the event page for more details.