(LifeSiteNews) — Canadian high school student Josh Alexander says he will “not back down” despite being arrested, held in a police car for hours, handcuffed, charged for trespassing, and then dumped on the side of the road after preaching the Gospel in protest of a drag queen event geared toward children last week in Ottawa.
Ottawa Police arrested four people protesting a drag queen story time event on February 8 at the National Arts Centre. One of those people arrested was Alexander, who had co-organized the protest.
In speaking with LifeSiteNews today, Alexander said the protesters had been allowed by a liaison to gather outside the venue but quickly were outnumbered by aggressive counter-protesters and “pushed away from the doors.”
Alexander had been reading passages from the Gospel via a megaphone.
“We got surrounded, pushed up against the wall,” he said. “They hit us a bit, they shoved us, they grabbed us, they ripped my hat off, stomped it out into the ground. I never got it back, my hat.”
“When the police saw this, instead of stopping our attackers, they grabbed myself and my crew and they threw us into traffic.”
Alexander said they tried to get back onto the sidewalk but were thrown back onto the road by the Ottawa Police Service.
“The cops that were on the road decided to arrest my brother (Nick) for being on the road,” Alexander said.
Nick was arrested but let go after about 30 minutes and was not charged.
The drag story time event saw drag performers China Doll and Cyril Cinder read stories to kids as part of Capital Pride’s Winterlude programming.
Alexander arrested after preaching the Gospel
“As I was quoting John 3:16, the police grabbed me and arrested me for disruption,” Alexander said. “They told me if I didn’t stop using the megaphone I would be arrested, and they arrested me.”
Alexander was handcuffed, held in a police cruiser for nearly two hours and charged with trespassing. Police later “dumped” him on a side street.
Alexander noted that he was not “even on the property when I was arrested.”
“I was on a public sidewalk,” Alexander said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
A video clip of the incident from CTV Ottawa shows Alexander and his brother being cornered by police.
Alexander said in the CTV video clip that it “is just wrong” to have kids around drag.
“It’s an inherently sexual thing,” he said. “Drag’s always been sexual. We’ve recently politicized it.”
Video posted online by Lincoln Jay of Rebel News also showed Alexander being placed in handcuffs before being put in the back of a police car. Additional video shows protesters and counter-protesters clashing outside the National Arts Centre.
Alexander noted to LifeSiteNews that before the demonstration he went inside to see for himself what the event was like. After about 20 minutes, Alexander was told by security that he was not allowed in and that if he did not leave police would be called.
At that point, he said police came into the building and “grabbed my bag and pulled me out.”
Alexander told LifeSiteNews that he left and did not attempt to go back inside the building.
“I got to see what I needed to see — drag queens prancing around in their inappropriate attire,” he said.
The arrest was the second time Alexander was detained by police in a week. Last Monday, he was arrested and charged at his school for attending class.
Alexander had protested last year at his Catholic school, St. Joseph’s in Renfrew, Ontario, for allowing gender-confused males to use girls’ bathrooms and was then suspended.
Josh’s attorney, James Kitchen, the chief litigator for Liberty Coalition Canada (LCC), told LifeSiteNews recently that Alexander’s decision to go back to school was “an intelligent choice of a young man who knows what he is doing.”
Kitchen said they will appeal the suspensions and will soon be making an official complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.
Alexander: I won’t ‘back down’
Alexander is now considering next steps with his trespassing charge but is adamant he will continue to protest the sexualization of kids.
“I’m certainly not going to back down,” Alexander told LifeSiteNews. “I will continue to protest if necessary and we’ll see what they throw at me for the next one.”
He noted to LifeSiteNews that police still have his $600 camera and rig setup. He was initially told he would be contacted within two days after his arrest.
“They haven’t given it back,” he told LifeSiteNews. “I’ve heard nothing.”
As reported by LifeSiteNews, Alexander was handed a 20-day suspension on November 23, 2022, after organizing a school walkout in support of girls’ rights to access their facilities without the presence of male students.
The teenager had told LifeSiteNews that, in accordance with Catholic teaching and the Bible, he believes that there are only two sexes.
In recent years, there has been a noticeable push in western nations to actively promote gender ideology to young people, particularly in the United States and Canada.
In fact, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government pledged a whopping $100 million in funding last year for LGBT activist groups.