The owner of an Idaho bar and restaurant plans to host a two-day “Hetero Awesome Fest” outside of the state Capitol in Boise in June to coincide with LGBTQ Pride Month.
Mark Fitzpatrick, the owner of the Old State Saloon in Eagle, a suburb of Boise, said the event was inspired by the restaurant’s inaugural “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month,” held last June in response to Pride celebrations.
Hetero Awesome Fest will be held June 20 and 21 in Cecil D. Andrus Park, directly across the street from the Capitol, and will feature live music, speakers “who are on the front lines defending traditional family values” and local food and drink vendors, according to a social media video promoting the event.
“This festival is more than just an event,” a voiceover on the video said. “It’s a declaration that faith, family and freedom are worth protecting.”
The event is seeking bands, volunteers, vendors and sponsors “who share our visions.”
“We’re trying to make this to be so family-oriented, and not the type of family-oriented where you have to watch naked men do pelvic gyrations in front of your children,” Fitzpatrick said in a video shared last week on the bar’s Instagram account.
Fitzpatrick, who did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment, has said on social media that Pride Month exists “so LGBTQ can march down the street doing disgusting and criminal activities while demanding to be celebrated,” and that the community “encourages children to cut off their sex organs.”
He said in the video promoting the event that he had reached out to a number of corporations who have donated to LGBTQ Pride celebrations over the years to ask if they would support the event, and they told him they typically only donate to registered nonprofits. As a result, he said, he created the nonprofit Heterosexual Awesomeness Inc., which will host the festival, though he hasn’t heard back from any major donors yet.
Fitzpatrick received international attention and backlash last year in response to “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month,” which he said at the time involved “no hate at all, it’s a love thing.”
“I’m always going to side with what God says,” Fitzpatrick told KTVB-TV, an NBC affiliate in Boise, last year. “If the Bible says that it’s a sin to act out in homosexuality, then I’m going to agree with what the Bible says. That doesn’t mean I don’t love homosexuals, and that doesn’t mean I don’t love people. But just because you love somebody, doesn’t mean you’re going to jump behind them and support them in every single decision they make in life. It’s not a requirement.”
Fitzpatrick said on social media that he was inspired to create Heterosexual Awesomeness Month last year when he and his family were discussing how they would celebrate his daughter’s birthday in June.
“Can’t go downtown to Boise during that time because of Pride Fest and everything that happens with it,” he said. “I got off track from the birthday, and I was thinking to myself, ‘What could we do to celebrate in June that would be different than what’s going on downtown? Can we be different than what Pride has been celebrating every June? What if we celebrated God’s design for sexuality? What would that look like?’ And within a few seconds, I thought, ‘Man, heterosexuality is awesome.’”
Fitzpatrick said last year that he had never been to Boise Pride. The festival hasn’t been held in June since 2020, when organizers rescheduled it for September due to the pandemic and decided to permanently adopt the change due to better weather, among other factors.
Regardless, Fitzpatrick said he had decided that the Old State Saloon would celebrate heterosexuality throughout June with a variety of specials. On Mondays, straight men can get a free beer during “Beers for Breeders.” On Tuesdays, straight women can buy drinks all day at happy hour pricing, and on Wednesdays, straight couples can receive a discount on their bill.
After last year’s Heterosexual Awesomeness Month went viral, Fitzpatrick said he received death threats, but that the positivity was “overwhelmingly more powerful.”
Boise Pride told KGW-TV, an NBC affiliate based in Portland, Oregon, that it has no official statement regarding this year’s Hetero Awesome Fest, but wished the organizers “the best of luck with their new festival.”
“Straight pride” supporters organized events in Boston and Modesto, California, in 2019, and last year several businesses in Santa Rosa, California, were vandalized with anti-LGBTQ flyers that provided a link to a rap song about “straight pride.”
LGBTQ Pride events, which trace their roots to 1970, have faced intense backlash in recent years. GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy organization, recorded 110 anti-LGBTQ incidents during June 2024, though the nonprofit noted that number was down 25% when compared to Pride 2023. Organizers of some of the country’s largest Pride parades have also reported that some of their biggest sponsors have pulled back this year amid the Trump administration’s policies targeting DEI initiatives.
