Midwest small town's Pride festival attracts thousands who reject far-right local pol

Guno צְבִי

Guno צְבִי

We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (AP) — Shawn Duncan and her wife, Betty, moved to Grand Haven 14 years ago, but kept their relationship hidden for most of that time fearing a backlash in the small city in a traditionally conservative part of Michigan.

“We knew if we wanted our company to thrive, we were going to have to just squash that we were together and married,” said Duncan, who works in respite care. “We both had the same last name, so it was easy to just say we’re sisters.”

But last weekend, surrounded by allies and members of the LGBTQ community, the Duncans held hands publicly in their hometown for the first time, at Grand Haven’s inaugural Pride festival.

It was time to celebrate, she said, after decades in the closet.

Organizers had hoped the festival would attract at least 500 attendees to the city of 11,000 people, but instead the drag show, dance party and vendor-filled streets drew thousands. For many, it was a shocking rebuttal of the increasing hostility toward the LGBTQ community seen nationwide as well as in the region.


https://news.yahoo.com/midwest-small-towns-pride-festival-160618017.html
 
In January, a conservative Christian group known as Ottawa Impact claimed a majority on Ottawa County’s board of commissioners and made several controversial decisions, including immediately closing the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Department. The board also decided against sending funds to support the county’s largest Pride festival, in Holland, even though it had sponsored the event for two years. Board chair Joe Moss refused for months to sign a grant awarded to an LGBTQ advocacy group for a youth program. When he did sign it, Moss wrote “vi coactus,” Latin for “having been forced.”


Even so, organizers were compelled to beef up security in the weeks before the festival. Festival co-chair Jessica Robinson said some organizers received threats online and in person.

The most common criticism in the heavily religious county was that the festival was offensive to the Christian community. Jeff Elzinga, a pastor at a local church, told a May 15 council meeting that the event was “directly against scripture,” and “harmful to the community.”

Robinson, who is a gay Christian, rejected that assumption.
 
guno said:
GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (AP) — Shawn Duncan and her wife, Betty, moved to Grand Haven 14 years ago, but kept their relationship hidden for most of that time fearing a backlash in the small city in a traditionally conservative part of Michigan.

“We knew if we wanted our company to thrive, we were going to have to just squash that we were together and married,” said Duncan, who works in respite care. “We both had the same last name, so it was easy to just say we’re sisters.”

But last weekend, surrounded by allies and members of the LGBTQ community, the Duncans held hands publicly in their hometown for the first time, at Grand Haven’s inaugural Pride festival.

It was time to celebrate, she said, after decades in the closet.

Organizers had hoped the festival would attract at least 500 attendees to the city of 11,000 people, but instead the drag show, dance party and vendor-filled streets drew thousands. For many, it was a shocking rebuttal of the increasing hostility toward the LGBTQ community seen nationwide as well as in the region.


https://news.yahoo.com/midwest-small-towns-pride-festival-160618017.html
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