The Daily Buzz7-year-old refuses to back down to homophobic preacher
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Zea Bowling may only be seven years old, but she already has a firm grip on one of our most homourable precepts: Actions speak louder than words.
Zea refused to back down in the face of hate over the weekend at a celebration of the Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage, the Huffington Post reports.
When a grown man began preaching at her through a microphone, the little girl stands there quietly as she waves her rainbow flag.
Strangers are then shown showering the brave little girl with high fives.
Her father, Ryan Bowling, posted the now viral video to YouTube, where he wrote that the occurrence happened at ComFest, an annual music and arts festival in Columbus, Ohio.
“This was not a march, or a political event,” he wrote. “The preacher was accosting festival goes, including other families with children.”
“His rhetoric – before being confronted by a small girl – was graphic and bigoted. He was escorted out by police a short time after.”
On his Facebook page, Bowling wrote that “Zea didn’t just flash the flag at the hatemonger and bail. They went toe to toe, for several minutes, while he bellowed all of his fire and brimstone right in her face.”
“She told me afterward that she did feel scared. The one thing the people of ComFest never let her feel though? Alone.”
A photo of the incident, taken by Bowling, has since been turned into a t-shirt designed by Zachary Traxler. The text in the background is “the language used in the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
Proceeds of the shirt will go towards Zea for her “courage to stand up for equality,” with a portion of the proceeds to be donated to “an LGBT non-profit of her family’s pick.”
