Just days after the second destruction of the pride flags in Waterford, posters advocating 'Straight Pride' have begun to appear in the city.
The poster shows a man and a woman with a caption saying "it's worked for thousands of years, and you can make babies".
Waterford writer and poet, Wayne Power, says the people behind these recent actions are bringing the whole county into disrepute.
Speaking on Déise Today he said it's hard to fathom the motivation:
"This idea of 'Oh why isn't there a Straight Pride?', and I would say to them, 'Do you know what? You should be counting your lucky stars that you don't have to have a straight pride.'
"When you can't hold your partner's hand in public for fear of a bit of abuse, or in a bar for fear of being glassed, then you can come to me and talk about Straight Pride.
"I think they clearly have a lot of time on their hands to be making up posters like that. If they could just kind of educate themselves and see why Pride exists in the first place."
Wayne, who has a new book of poetry out called 'Everyone's a Star after Midnight', says hateful actions like the burning of the flags or the putting up of these posters, do still have an effect:
"As a poet and a writer, and as I said, I am a gay man myself, I have no problem using whatever platform I have to stand up for what I believe to be right and to be decent and respectable.
"And this is why, because of the Pride flags being burned, I woke up on the Bank Holiday Monday and I saw that and it really did hit hard.
"I'm a lot older than some of the younger generation and you never stop being affected by something like that."
In light of the recent vandalism and hateful acts, Wayne says he will be donating all the money from the sales of his new book to the local youth service, 'Chill Out', which helps young LGBTQ+ people and is based on Manor Street.
He told Damien Tiernan that Waterford can't let discrimination be the county's image now:
"Waterford is not anti-gay. I've spoken about decency and respect and inclusion, and Waterford City has an abundance of that. And obviously, it's a shame that the city will be tarred with that brush because of one or two empty-headed people.
"... You do take them on but you don't do 'an eye for an eye' sort of thing. I know some people were asking me 'Well, why don't we rip down those posters?', and I think no, don't rip them down. You're giving them what they want then.
"They obviously took down the Pride flag, they burned it. You may as well be spitting directly into someone's face as to actually burn an actual flag."
Homophobic hate on show in Waterford City again tonight - covered the place in ‘straight pride’ posters. This follows the burning of a Pride flag and the cutting down of the replacement Pride flag in just over a week. #Pride pic.twitter.com/OMQdQBhhn0
— Michelle Byrne (@Michelle_Byrne_) June 16, 2021
