A street preacher gave a loud, anti-LGBT speech on Buchanan Street in Glasgow and was shut down by a passing cyclist. A video shared on Facebook by Emlyn Pearce shows the street preacher holding a Bible and aggressively shouting to people as they walk by.
He paces around and points at people, but all pedestrians either look uncomfortable or completely ignore him. The preacher claims that only one percent of the population is LGBT, and the remaining 99 percent should fight back. He also shouts that LGBT people must repent.
After most pedestrians just pass by and ignore him, a man on a bicycle rides by, watching the preacher. The cyclist stops and tells the man, “I’m gay, so say it to me.” The preacher tells the man to repent and find God’s love, and the cyclist replies, “I love me; I don’t need a God to do it.” He received applause from the small audience who had gathered as he rode away.
Hate speech is illegal in the United Kingdom, but it is rare for street preachers to actually be convicted. The video has received attention from people all around the world showing their support for the cyclist. The cyclist in the video has not been identified, but when Pearce uploaded the video to Facebook, he added the comment, “If anyone knows this chap, please tell him to get in touch because a fair few people would like to buy him a drink.”
With gay rights being an important and controversial issue in the past few years, many people have been very vocal about their anti-LGBT views. However, videos like this show the support that the majority of people have for the LGBT community.