METAIRIE, La. — A conservative, anti-gay pastor who has staged protests against New Orleans’ Southern Decadence Festival, calling the predominantly gay event “perversion,” has been arrested for allegedly masturbating in a park adjacent to a children’s playground.
The Rev. Grant Storms was arrested for obscenity after two witnesses told police they saw him touching himself while watching children on the playground at Lafreniere Park in Metairie, La.
Storms, 53, claims he was urinating in a bottle on his lunch break.
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The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you.Storms responded to the allegations by saying, “I am not a child pedophile and no children saw me. I had my hands in my pants, but I was not exposed.”
A self-proclaimed “Christian patriot,” Storms is especially known for arming followers with bullhorns, Bibles and picket signs to protest Southern Decadence, a three-day gay festival held annually in the French Quarter over Labor Day weekend.
In 2003, Storms grabbed national attention with his failed attempts to shut down what Southern Decadence organizer Chuck Robinson called a peaceful festival that celebrates gay and alternative lifestyles. Storms called the event “nasty” and “depraved.”
His bail was set at $5,000 but he was released due to overcrowding at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center jail.
