America's Freedom Festival — Local services in Provo

You can't delete the reviews here Freedom Festival staff, we will not be silenced. To anyone seeing this, after wrongly excluding the LGBTQ support space 'Encircle' from this years Freedom parade (literally booted them out the morning of the 4th) their Facebook page was filled with 1 star reviews like those here on Google. They removed the review feature from their Facebook page and deleted several hundred negative reviews. They also went through and deleted all the comments on their posts. Clearly they do not want to face the fact that they messed up and discriminated against a part of the Provo community by kicking them out of the festivities.

Encircle is not a 'political advocacy' group. They are a 501c3 nonprofit and CAN'T advocate for politics because that is their classification. They provide support to LGBTQ's in the area and in many cases help keep them from killing themselves thanks to the toxic culture in Utah. I'm sorry that saving lives is 'politics' to you freedom festival. If anyone is a political advocacy group it's the Mormon church and its values you seem to hold so dear. It has actually done political activism. Maybe next year boot the missionaries from walking the parade then hm?

Do not...

America's "Freedom" festival decided to ban the only LGBT-friendly group in Provo (Encircle) from walking in the parade mere hours before they were supposed to march. Apparently, the organizers didn't want there to be any time to fight to get them back in the parade. Despite being approved months in advance, and even the Provo mayor fighting for them, the leadership falsely claimed they were a political group to hide their thinly veiled discrimination. Encircle is legally registered as a nonprofit organization, and this was established months ago when they registered for a spot in the parade.

They made their anti-LGBT stance clear, and when people began to speak out against them on the Freedom Festival Facebook page, they shut down reviews and commenting to hide their mistakes.

This festival is run by disgraceful people and they're showing their...

Encircle is not an advocacy group. They serve a vital part in the Provo community to save the lives of LGBT+ teens and young adults that do not feel included in their community and do not feel safe in their own homes. Last time I checked, they are actually promoting LDS/Christian values of love, compassion, and inclusion. I'm sad to see that this kind of homophobia still exists in Provo and that no apology has been issued... also it's really not cool that you deleted all the lashback on your Facebook page. The community has a right to be angry....