https://www.npr.org/2022/06/20/ [login to see] /patriot-front-extremists-lbgtq-pride
Two incidents in which far-right extremists targeted LGBTQ events earlier this month marked what appeared to be a shift in focus for white supremacist activists.
A group of men with ties to the white nationalist Patriot Front was arrested outside a Pride event in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. The same day, alleged members of the far-right Proud Boys crashed a children's drag queen storytelling event and shouted homophobic and transphobic slurs, in what Alameda, Calif., sheriffs are now investigating as a possible hate crime.
Earlier iterations of Patriot Front and the Proud Boys were among the neo-Nazi factions who sought to intimidate the Charlottesville, Va., community at the "Unite the Right" rally in 2017.
So, why would members of a white supremacist group — many of whom, in the case of the Idaho event, had traveled from other states — choose to target a local Pride event?
Extremism researchers say the far-right activists are seizing on an opportunity of heightened attention around cultures that they have always seen as a threat to their hateful interests. And the particular events the extremists chose to target that Saturday had in recent weeks drawn negative attention among the far-right online networks that fuel their hate activism.