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CHARLOTTE – The Pride Festival brought crowds to Charlotte’s Gateway Village Saturday. The annual event celebrates the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. But not everyone was supportive, and others gathered to make their voices heard.

Those who attended the festival said it’s a celebration of who they are.

“We want to encourage everyone to be comfortable with themselves and to feel accepted in their community,” Toryn Stark, co-chair of Pride Charlotte, said.

Vendors lined Gateway Plaza and festival attendants were entertained by a list of performers.

But just across the street, the God Has a Better Way rally was under way.

“We don’t think it’s best for a little boy to go to school dressed as a girl,” Dr. Michael Brown, director of Coalition of Conscience, said. “We don’t think it’s best to have male-male, female-female couples that guarantee a child won’t have a mother or a father.”

So they walked from First Baptist Church to the event to worship and pray.

“We’re praying to make them know that god, he loves them, that they’re not cast out, rejected and hated, and that there is a better way than gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, and that’s found in Jesus,” Brown said.

They also wanted to send a message in hopes of stopping what they’re calling an activist agenda.

“By activist agenda, we mean those who came out of the closet 40 years ago and are trying to put conservative Christians in the closet,” Brown said.

One Pride Festival participant turned the tables.

“Each year, we have groups come to our pride celebrations trying to demonstrate their message of love, saying there’s a better way or we need to change who we are, and so this year I thought, what if we go to them? I think it’s time to flip the script, so to speak,” Monica Simpson said.

In the midst of the sea of red shirts stood Simpson, a yearly pride participant.

“It allowed me to see how much work still needs to be done on this earth as we really talk about the dream that god has for us to live as one and realize we are all connected as one,” she said.

Everyone who attended the God Has a Better Way rally signed a pledge agreeing to hold a peaceful demonstration.