5 Arrested in Melee at Gay Festival in Santa Ana

Five people were arrested Sunday when a fist-swinging brawl broke out among more than 50 militant gays and fundamentalist Christians at Orange County’s first gay pride festival in Santa Ana’s Centennial Regional Park.

About 75 riot-equipped police from four different departments were called in to quell the disturbance, but no serious injuries were reported as the two-day festival concluded Sunday evening. The five people arrested--all believed to be members of gay rights groups--were taken to the Santa Ana police station where they were to be cited for interfering with police and released. Their names were not released.

Wearing riot helmets and swinging batons, police had to keep separating the two sides, which continued to taunt each other for nearly an hour, until enough officers arrived to maintain control.

Police ordered organizers of the Orange County Cultural Pride Festival to lock the gates to the festival grounds for a half hour after the brawl and considered shutting the event down early. Police finally decided to let it continue as scheduled for the rest of the day.

About 10,000 people were on the festival grounds Sunday and were watching and applauding a gay pride parade when the violence broke out.

Several witnesses said about 75 gays, some of them members of the militant gay groups Act Up Los Angeles and the Orange County Visibility League, encircled about 20 to 25 fundamentalists about 1:30 p.m. on a grassy knoll at an entrance to the park.

The gays began chanting, “Kiss, kiss, kiss,” and several pairs began kissing each other. Several of the fundamentalists, clearly outnumbered, tried to retreat as they yelled, “Repent! Repent!”

“It was scary. All of a sudden the homosexuals surrounded us and began doing stuff to provoke us,” said Forrest Ricker, a 60-year-old fundamentalist from Orange. “I held up my two Bibles and asked God to forgive them.”

A moment later, Ricker said, police wrestled two of the gays to the ground, pinning them to the asphalt with their batons.

“For several minutes, chaos broke out,” he said. “I just turned and hustled out of there.”

Robert F. Gentry, mayor of Laguna Beach and one of Orange County’s most visible gay politicians, said the clash resulted when “emotions boiled over” on the part of gays tired of what he called constant verbal harassment.

“And when you constantly hear voices calling you names, calling you a sinner and worse, you reach a breaking point,” said Gentry, who was watching the parade and estimated that he was several hundred feet from the violence.

Soon after the initial clash, witnesses said, other gays standing nearby in a growing crowd of about 200 people began pushing the fundamentalists out of the park. The two sides called one another names and swung at each other with fists, prompting police to rush back in again. Two men were arrested, witnesses said.

Fundamentalists Regroup

The fundamentalists at that point left the park, regrouping in a residential neighborhood, witnesses said. Police reinforcements, meanwhile, began arriving from surrounding jurisdictions, including Costa Mesa, Irvine, Newport Beach and Fountain Valley.

The police, about 75 by this time and wearing helmets and rubber gloves, formed a line along one side of the park and began moving in with billy clubs, forcing a crowd that had grown to about 500 people back toward the gay festival entrance in the middle of the park, witnesses said. Police made three more arrests.

Many of the bystanders ran back inside the festival, some crying. With emotions running high and some gays shouting at police, “You’re taking away our civil rights,” Janet Avery, president of Orange County Cultural Pride, took the stage and pleaded for calm.

‘Our Day in the Sun’

“We came here to celebrate,” Avery said, as the crowd quieted. “If you have a friend who is not here to celebrate, please get them in the mood. This is our day in the sun.”

Glenn Benjamin, a north Orange County fundamentalist who carried a sign that read, “Jesus Saves,” blamed the gays for the confrontation.

“Why did they have to go that far?” an angry Benjamin asked. “They have the park. They got their way. We were within our rights. I hope they burn in hell.”

Times staff writer Steven R. Churm and Times photographer Gail Fisher contributed to this report.