Video of little girl waving rainbow flag in front of street preacher goes viral
A video of first-grader waving a rainbow flag in front of a street preacher at a festival in Columbus, Ohio is going viral.
Ryan Bowling captured the above footage of his daughter Zea waving a rainbow flag in front of a street preacher at Comfest, a community music festival in Columbus.
"This was not a march, or a political event," Bowling wrote on YouTube. "The preacher was accosting festival goers, including other families with children."
In the video, Zea receives a flurry of high fives and praise from the crowd, as the preacher continues his speech. Bowling said that his daughter was volunteering at the festival, and was on the way to spend her volunteer tokens on pizza.
"His rhetoric, before being confronted by a small girl, was graphic, and bigoted," Bowling said.
The video was captured on June 27, just one day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage across the country. Since uploading the video on June 29, it has received over 400,000 views, with Zea receiving messages of praise from online commenters.
"She didn't even have to speak! Her presence is enough... That little girl is awesome!" wrote one commenter.
"Our future is bright with young people like her!!!!" wrote another.
Other commenters, however, had different opinions about what happened in the video.
"I'm pretty sure the preacher never backed down nor said or did anything homophobic...I think it's pretty prejudice to assume that just because someone is talking about their religious beliefs, must mean that they're homophobic," commented one YouTube user.
"He wasn't yelling at her, he was at a respectable distance and was trying to talk over the noise," wrote another.
Bowling wrote on his Facebook page about how his daughter felt after the incident took place.
"She told me afterward that she did feel scared. The one thing the people of #comfest2015 never let her feel though? Alone."
