Fake ‘Pride Festival’ flyers have disturbing message

Fake flyers for Saturday’s upcoming Central Oregon Pride festival began showing up around town Tuesday, falsely claiming affiliation with a pedophile group and prompting a request from event organizers to help remove them.

The Human Dignity Coalition, which is helping to put on the festival, is in no way affiliated with pedophilic organizations. The president of the coalition said this kind of deception is harmful; she said she’s already had several people call and ask if her organization is affiliated with pedophiles.

“This sort of propaganda put on these fliers incite violence, they insinuate that the LGBTQ+ community is okay with pedophilia, and it’s dangerous,” HDC President Jamie Bowman said Wednesday. “It just puts more hate on a community that is already oppressed and already feeling the burden of not being equal in society.”

Drew Cogen, owner of Postal Connections, where the copies were made, said the man came in and wanted to make 600 of them off a flash drive. He had printed about 200 when an issue popped up, so he took his flash drive to the counter for some help.

“The minute one of my employees opened up the flash drive and started to put it up on the monitor, he said, ‘Just give me the flash drive, I’m just going to take what you guys have done already and I’m going to go.'”

“It was concerning to us,” Cogen said. “We’re just happy that he doesn’t have any more. We threw out the rest that he left behind, so about 300 just went in the trash.”

Bend police investigators are looking into the case.

Here’s a news release issued Tuesday night by the Human Dignity Coalition:

On Tuesday, concerned citizens began reporting sightings of a misleading and disturbing flyer claiming to represent the upcoming Central Oregon Pride festival. But instead of depicting the actual events, the flyers made false claims about the nature and sponsorship of the event.

Specifically, the flyers claimed the event would include remarks from a self-proclaimed “celibate pedophile” and that it was sponsored by a pro-pedophilia organization as well as local Messianic Jewish congregation House of Covenant.

Members of that congregation said they have no knowledge of the poster and don’t know why their logo, which includes a Star of David, was listed on the flyer. It also included the words “Human Dignity Coalition” with an unfamiliar logo, a photo of a dancing child and adds a P — presumably for pedophilia — to the LGBTQ label.

“We are deeply disturbed that someone would promote crimes against children in any context, but for them to do so under the guise of celebrating the LGBTQ community is especially troubling,” said Jamie Bowman, Human Dignity Coalition board president. “Unfounded accusations of pedophilia have long been used to demonize LGBTQ people, despite the fact that most of these crimes are committed by straight men.”

The coalition said it learned the flyers were self-printed by an unknown customer at a Bend business who used a flash drive and paid in cash. The manager on duty said he was shocked when he learned what had been printed but couldn’t identify the person who printed them. He noted that 600 copies were printed, but the customer left half behind.

The Human Dignity Coalition is asking community members to take down the false posters if they see them. Board members have already removed more than 60 flyers from Bend’s west side and downtown.

The organization said Central Oregon Pride is a free and family-friendly celebration of diversity and inclusion sponsored by a wide range of businesses, including title sponsor Subaru of Bend.

“Pride is an opportunity for Central Oregonians to come together in celebration of diversity, inclusion and community,” Bowman says, “And to let LGBTQ folks know they belong here, too.”

This year’s festival will take place Saturday in Drake Park. The event includes booths from community and governmental organizations, businesses, faith communities and vendors as well as music from local and national performers including Hit Machine, Sam Tolson, Lipstick Divas, God-Des, and Teafly. Political candidates Jamie McLeod-Skinner and Nathan Boddie will also speak at the event.