[Robert Adam Gilmour]

The controversy was playing out differently in different places with different reasons given. It's tricky trying to sum up the main motives of so many different groups, because I doubt many were there to see all of it. There definitely would have been some virtue signalling but there was plenty of sincerity too.
Again, Sofia Samatar was one of the people who started this controversy and she teaches HPL stories and encouraged people to read him but still felt uncomfortable with the statue. She's very intelligent and it seems like she's a very fine writer.

It is possible that there were some people who don't get HPL, are a bit exasperated with his popularity and jumped on the bandwagon with more enthusiasm for that reason.

HPL's reputation probably makes people more apprehensive about the stories and maybe their reading is influenced by that.