A man who had been standing with extremists protesting a drag show in San Antonio and had walked into the street to angrily confront LGBTQ supporters on the other side of the street, left, picks up his shirt and begins to retreat as armed LGBTQ supporters, circled on the right, move to stand between him and other LGBTQ supporters. (Screen cap from video posted on Twitter by Texas Public Radio reporter Joey Palacios)

Rightwing activists, allegedly joined by members of the gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans, turned out Tuesday night, Dec. 14, in San Antonio to protest outside the Aztec Theater as a Christmas-themed drag show was happening inside the theater.

Most of those protesting the show were said to be members of the This Is Texas Freedom Force, a group described as an “extremist militia group” by the FBI, LGBTQ Nation said. San Antonio Report noted, ‘Other conservative groups, including the San Antonio Family Association and the Log Cabin Republicans of San Antonio, rallied their supporters to attend the protest.”

Texas Public Radio reporter Joey Palacios live-tweeted the protest, noting that “Demonstrators supporting and opposing” the show had begun arriving at about 6:30 p.m. And, he pointed, “Both sides are armed.”

The San Antonio Report said “a handful of armed people dressed all in black with their faces mostly covered [and] rainbow scarves tied to their tactical gear” were standing with the LGBTQ supporters. Most of them declined to speak to reporters, but one did confirm that there were members of the John Brown Gun Club attending.

According to Palacios, the rightwing extremists were there to claim that the drag show — which included only one mention of alcohol, no nudity and no sexually suggestive language — was “grooming children.” The other group was there to support LGBTQ equality and to denounce fascism. When one of the extremists shouted something about pedophiles grooming children at drag shows, one of the LGBTQ supporters responded with, “The groomers are in your churches.”

The LGBTA/anti-fascist side was larger and more heavily armed, he said. With about an hour to go before the show started, Palacios said both groups had grown in size since the first demonstrators arrived outside the theater, but that the LGBTQ supporters outnumbered the extremists by about 4-to-1.

The San Antonio Report noted, “The crowd of LGBTQ community members and their allies grew to more than 150 people as the evening progressed, playing music, dancing and chanting to drown out those who massed across the street to protest the show about to go on inside.”

San Antonio police were on the scene to keep the protests as peaceful at possible. At about 8 p.m., a man from the rightwing side of the street removed his shirt and walked into the street, yelling and cussing at someone on the other side. He was carry a gray weekender-type bag that he dropped in the street as he approached the LGBTQ supporters. Individuals on the LGBTQ side stepped forward, arms spread, to keep the angry man away from whomever he was yelling at, and a police officer quickly stepped in to move the man back off the street and make him leave.

But, as one person noted in a comment to the Twitter post, when one of the armed LGBTQ supporters moved toward him, the man quickly began retreating even before the police officer stepped in, picking up his gray bag and taking it with him,

Over the next couple of hours, Palacios said, there were “a few small moments of aggression” between the two opposing groups, but there was no outright violence. “The drag show ended at 10:30 p.m. almost on the dot,” he wrote. “People began trickling out of the theater, and, by this time, most people on either side of the protest had left. There were still a few people on each side shouting at each other.”

— Tammye Nash