WEYBURN, Sask. – A controversial American anti-gay activist delivered a speech at the Saskatchewan Pro-Life Association (SPLA) 2014 provincial conference on Saturday morning in Weyburn.
This comes after Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) president Peter LaBarbera was detained at Regina International Airport on Thursday for a possible violation of the hate propaganda law.
READ MORE: Anti-gay speaker allowed to speak at event in Weyburn
A local group known as Intolerance Free Weyburn has been protesting LaBarbera’s attendance this past week.
Roughly 30 protesters gathered across the street from where the conference was taking place at McKenna Hall on Saturday, holding signs saying “pro-love.”
“Our petition was only to ask Sask. Pro-Life to look into him more and reconsider. Is his message your message too and they did that,” said Bailey Brooks, protest organizer.
LaBarbera was released by the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) after they declared there weren’t sufficient grounds to prosecute him.
He says he’s relieved to have delivered his speech at the conference as planned, despite the backlash he’s received.
“I think it was wrong of them to try to stop me from speaking here,” said LaBarbera.
“The fact that the speech was all received and everything went as planned, hopefully this will lead to less attempts by the left to block people’s speech out.”
LaBarbera also held a question and answer session in the afternoon, as part of conference.
AFTAH, a non-profit group, was founded in 1996. The group’s website says it is “dedicated to exposing the homosexual-bisexual-transgender activist agendas.”
Comments