STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (WTAJ) — “Pride is love,” French soccer star and parade Grand Marshal Marinette Pichon declared in front of a crowd of thousands of members and allies of the LGBTQ community gathered in Sidney Friedman Park, a sentiment echoed both verbally and by the actions of all in attendance at State College Pride.

State College celebrated Pride Month throughout the streets of downtown Saturday with a parade and festival to follow. Colorful floats and vendor booths lined Allen Street and the park was filled with drag performers, artists and live music, enjoyed by people of all identities.

“I’m very happy just because I feel so much love during this day and I hope it’s going to last all year long. That’s what we want,” Pichon said.

Less than a half dozen residents showed up to the event with signs of protest, screaming messages of hate and demanding members of the LGBTQ community “repent for their sins.”

“What is wrong with you? What has happened to you? Are you completely out of your mind? You need to find God,” one protestor shouted over cheers and applause as a drag queen finished her performance to Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!”

Man protests State College Pride celebration (WTAJ).A drag queen performs amongst the crowd at Sidney Friedman Park in downtown State College for Pride (WTAJ).

Despite the protest, community leaders State Representative Paul Takac and State College Mayor Ezra Nanes, attendees and Pichon all said the day was full of love and a sense of belonging.

“There’s a few people who turn out in protest, but it’s never confrontational. It’s always about, look, love is love. We’re all together here and it’s just positivity all around. No negativity. That’s what I really love about today,” Takac said.

“Towards the end of the parade, we were in a little blue truck and we were going up the last hill in the truck. She’s a little old and stopped working for us and the community came up and pushed the truck up that last hill,” Nanes recounted. “And it, to me, it just felt like one of those emblematic moments. You know sometimes we face hard time where we rally together. We help one another up those hills, and that’s what it’s all about.”

While Pride only comes once a year to the State College community, Centre LGBT+ board member Michel Lee Garret stresses the importance of Pride, both as a day of celebration, and as a reminder of the adversities still faced by the LGBTQ community.

“I think Pride is especially important because we as queer people have pride because we have so often been told that we should be ashamed of who we are,” Garret said. “Pride is a way for us to come together to build family, to find purpose and meaning, to give each other strength and continue the ongoing and never ending process of advocating for peace and justice and equity for queer people and people of all identities across all intersecting axes of human diversity.”

Representatives of Centre LGBT+ who organized State College Pride hope the event helped uplift and strengthen the LGBTQ community in State College and the surrounding area.