NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Organizers of the annual gay festival known as Southern Decadence entertained over 120,000 visitors cramming the bars and streets of the French Quarter, even as church leaders denounced the partying as sinful and a stain on the city’s reputation.

The party – composed of drag queens, heavy public drinking, parties and parades – overlapped this year with the annual meeting of the National Baptist Convention, a 7.5 million-member group of black Baptists, meeting in the city’s convention center.

The Baptist group’s meeting started with a choral concert on Monday, the same day gay revelers wrapped up Southern Decadence with a final blowout on Bourbon Street.

The Baptist group has no official position on the festival, but other church groups were more vocal.

“Our city’s image is hurt around the country” by the “everyday tawdriness” of the festival, said Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Paul Morton, bishop of a 20,000-member New Orleans Baptist church issued a statement calling homosexuality “an abomination to God” and said Southern Decadence “presents negative images, not representative of the culture and the lifestyle of the majority of citizens in our great city.”

Southern Decadence organizers said they expected such criticism to have no effect. They predicted the festival would go off without a hitch.

The festival officially started Wednesday and continued through the weekend with concerts, costume shows, gay-themed comic acts, a parade through the French Quarter, and talent shows. Many of the events are hosted by Chi Chi LaRue, a porn actress.

The festival, in its 33rd year, has long had the support of city government, and festival promoters say the influx of partiers last year brought an estimated $96 million to the city’s hotels, restaurants, bars and other businesses.

“It’s a big boost in the arm for the New Orleans economy,” Naquin said.

One nondenominational Christian, the Rev. Grant Storms, has for years denounced the festival and accused the partiers of having sex in public on Bourbon Street and elsewhere. Storms called Southern Decadence “this party of perversion and festival of filthiness,” and vowed that he would lead several hundred protesters through the crowds on Friday.

“We want this ended, we want it stopped. We’re not going to take no for an answer. We’re not going away,” Storms said.

Naquin said there were no indecency arrests last year. He said Storms’ protest had no effect on this year’s festival.

“He was a washout last year and his protests meant nothing to us this year,” Naquin said.