Hundreds of people gathered in Orlando over the weekend for the Freedom March, an event featuring men and women who say Jesus delivered them from the LGBT lifestyle.
According to the Christian Post, the men and women call themselves “overcomers.”
More than 400 people marched at the event, shouting as they walked, “Freedom in Christ. It’s so nice” and “When I say Jesus, you say freedom.”
Churches and local ministries also set up booths and tents at the Lake Eola Park event to support the Freedom March.
The march was organized by Angel Colon and Luis Javier Ruiz, both men who survived the shooting at the Orlando nightclub, Pulse, in 2016. Since the shooting, both men abandoned homosexuality and started a ministry called Fearless Identity.
Fearless Identity helps churches as they try to share God’s word with the LGBT community.
“It’s not a gay to straight thing, it’s a lost to saved thing,” Ruiz said.
Many of the event’s leaders had abandoned an LGBT lifestyle. The event’s worship leader, Edward Byrd, shared that he formerly identified as androgynous before he became a Christian.
The Freedom March’s founder, Jeffrey Mccall, said he was a former transgender prostitute. The Uprooted Heart founder, MJ Nixon, who baptized people at the event, said she was a former lesbian.
Speakers told attendees that God “loves gay people,” but to change your lifestyle, you first have to follow Jesus.
“God wants all your heart, not just your sexuality,” Ruiz said. “Remember, don’t make freedom your god. Make Christ Jesus your freedom.”
The first Freedom March took place in May in Washington, D.C. The group will head to Georgia in October for another March and is planning another visit to Washington, D.C. in May 2020.