Tag Archives: LGBT Pride

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH 2023! Including a VERY SPECIAL MESSAGE from Matt Bomer!

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH 2023! Including a VERY SPECIAL MESSAGE from Matt Bomer!

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A Happy PRIDE MONTH 2023 to all including our FANTASTIC LGBT STR8 Allies!

Pride Month is a month-long celebration and recognition of the LGBT+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and others) community. It is observed in June each year and is marked by various events, parades, parties, and activities that promote LGBT+ rights, equality, and diversity.

It’s important to note that Pride month is not just a celebration, but also a reminder that there is still so much work to be done to achieve full equality and acceptance for the LGBT+ community.

Remember: PRIDE Month is not to be confused with LGBT History Month which falls in October.

To celebrate PRIDE 2023 we are playing the cover of Kelly Clarkson’s “People Like Us” by Matt Bomer and Alan Mingo Jr. from HBO’s “Doom Patrol”.

And after all the abuse the LGBT community has taken these past 2 years the message is clear.

Get Angry, protect each other, fight, and stay the course!

Our lives depend on it.

“Hey, everybody loses it
Everybody wants to throw it all away sometimes
And hey, yeah I know what you’re going through
Don’t let it get the best of you, you’ll make it out alive

Oh, people like us we’ve gotta stick together
Keep your head up, nothing lasts forever
Here’s to the damned to the lost and forgotten
It’s hard to get high when you’re living on the bottom…

Hey, this is not a funeral
It’s a revolution, after all your tears have turned to rage
Just wait, everything will be okay
Even when you’re feeling like it’s going down in flames.

Oh, people like us we’ve gotta stick together
Keep your head up, nothing lasts forever
Here’s to the damned to the lost and forgotten
It’s hard to get high when you’re living on the bottom.

They can’t do nothing to you, they can’t do nothing to me
This is the life that we choose, this is the life that we bleed
So throw your fists in the air, come out, come out if you dare
Tonight we’re gonna change forever

Listen to the lyrics my children. And FIGHT!

The Importance of LGBT PRIDE: Celebrating Diversity and Promoting Equality

REMINDER: The Importance of PRIDE: Celebrating Diversity and Promoting Equality

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Just a reminder for those who need it right now. *cough* Wilton Manors *cough”.

LGBT Pride, an annual celebration of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, holds immense significance in today’s society now more than ever.

PRIDE promotes acceptance, fostering inclusivity, and advocating for equal rights. By raising awareness, celebrating diversity, and empowering individuals, LGBT Pride catalyzes positive change.

  1. Fostering Inclusivity and Equality: LGBT Pride serves as a powerful symbol of inclusivity and equality. By organizing parades, festivals, and educational events, Pride brings together people from diverse backgrounds, encouraging dialogue and fostering connections. These celebrations allow LGBT individuals to connect with allies and support networks, creating a sense of solidarity and unity. Moreover, Pride events raise awareness about the challenges faced by the LGBT community and advocate for equal rights. They provide an opportunity to engage with policymakers, promote legislation that protects LGBT rights, and drive social change. By highlighting the importance of equal treatment under the law and advocating for policies that ensure fairness, LGBT Pride contributes to building a more just and inclusive society for everyone.
  2. Empowering Individuals and Celebrating Diversity: LGBT Pride empowers individuals by providing a platform for self-expression and celebrating diversity. In a society that often marginalizes and silences LGBT voices, Pride events offer an inclusive space where individuals can embrace their authentic selves without fear of judgment or discrimination. It fosters self-acceptance, resilience, and pride in one’s identity, helping individuals to overcome the challenges they may face. By celebrating diversity, Pride encourages people to embrace their unique identities, challenging societal norms and fostering a more inclusive understanding of human sexuality and gender. This empowerment not only benefits the individuals but also positively impacts their communities by promoting a culture of acceptance and respect.
  3. Promoting Acceptance and Combating Prejudice: LGBT Pride plays a crucial role in promoting acceptance and combatting prejudice. For many years, members of the LGBT community have faced discrimination, marginalization, and oppression due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. Pride events provide a platform for individuals to come together, share their stories, and celebrate their identities openly. By creating a sense of belonging and community, Pride fosters understanding and challenges the stereotypes and stigmas associated with the LGBT community. It sends a powerful message to both LGBT individuals and the wider society that love and acceptance should prevail over discrimination and hate.

LGBT Pride plays a vital role in promoting acceptance, fostering inclusivity, and advocating for equal rights. By combatting prejudice, fostering dialogue, and empowering individuals, Pride celebrations create spaces where the LGBT community can be visible, celebrated, and respected. Through its emphasis on acceptance, equality, and diversity, LGBT Pride serves as a powerful force for positive social change, fostering a more inclusive and equitable society for all. It is essential to continue supporting and participating in Pride events to ensure that progress toward acceptance and equality continues.

FLORIDA take note: THIS is what PRIDE is all about. There is also one more aspect of PRIDE not mentioned: Courage. Something that seems to be lacking in the state as PRIDE celebrations are being canceled and neutered left and right.

1 Dead, 1 Seriously Injured As Car Slams Into Wilton Manor's Pride Parade

1 Dead, 1 Seriously Injured As Car Slams Into Wilton Manor’s Pride Parade

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1 person is dead and 1 person has been seriously injured after a driver slammed into spectators Saturday evening at the start of a Pride parade in South Florida, killing one man and seriously injuring another during the Wilton Manors Stonewall Pride Parade Saturday night.

Via AP News:

To my knowledge it was an accident. This was not an attack on the LGBTQ community,” Knight said in the statement. “We anticipate more details to follow and ask for the community’s love and support.”

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis said a driver of a pickup truck suddenly accelerated when he was told he was next in the parade, crashing into the victims, according to WSVN-TV.

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In the immediate aftermath of the crash, Trantalis said he believed the crash was “deliberate.” and spectator Christina Currie told the South Florida SunSentinel that she was with her family at the start of the parade.

“All of a sudden there was a loud revving of a truck and a crash through a fence,” Currie said. “It was definitely an intentional act right across the lanes of traffic.”

It is unclear at this time what exactly did happen and why.

Police said the driver was taken into custody, Both the driver and the victims were a part of the Fort Lauderdale Gay Men’s Chorus family, according to a statement reported by news outlets from the group’s president, Justin Knight.

Thousands March in Sarajevo, Bosnia's First Gay Pride Parade

Thousands March in Sarajevo, Bosnia’s First Gay Pride Parade

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Several thousand people marched in Sarajevo, Bosnia’s first-ever Gay Pride Parade on Sunday, protected by a major security operation including anti-sniper units after some conservative Muslim groups organized counter-rallies.

More than 1,000 police officers secured the event, shielding the walking area with fences and concrete blocks. Anti-sniper units were placed on the roofs of buildings along the main route in the city center in case of violence.

Bosnia is the last Balkan country to hold a Pride parade, seen as a test of tolerance of minority rights as it seeks to join the European Union.

Parade leaders carried a pink banner with the slogan ‘Ima Izac’ or ‘I Want Out’ in both Latin and Cyrillic scripts. Marchers carried placards reading “Love is not a Privilege” and “Queer Resistance”, waving rainbow flags and singing anti-fascist songs.

“We, LGBT persons, fight every day for our existence, identity and love,” said Branko Culibrk, an organizer, adding that passivity of institutions in Bosnia, where discrimination against minority groups is legally banned, had encouraged violence from homophobic groups.

About a mile from the parade route, dozens of followers of a conservative Islamic group earlier held a rally against Sunday’s event. They described the pride march as a “sin” and “humiliation” for Sarajevo.

Another protesting group — the Svjetlost (Light) — called on people to rally against “un-values propagated by the LGBT community.

Male and female same-sex sexual activity is legal in Bosnia. However, households headed by same-sex couples are not eligible for the same legal protections available to opposite-sex couples.

Despite being legal, LGBT people in Bosnia complain about widespread harassment and attacks that are rarely prosecuted.

Image result for sarajevo gay pride

Image result for sarajevo gay pride

Image result for sarajevo gay pride
Armed Neo-Nazis Protest At Detroit Pride Festival

Armed Neo-Nazis Protest At Detroit Pride Festival

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Armed Neo-Nazi protesters with police escort marching through downtown Detroit during the Motor City Pride festivities. NSM
[The National Socialist Movement] members from across the country reportedly traveled to Detroit to take part in this anti-Pride demonstration.

The Independent reports:

In Detroit, an armed white supremacist group called the National Socialist Movement (NSM) descended on the annual Motor City Pride Festival, where they held placards, gave Nazi salutes and displayed armbands with swastikas.

Photos from the event, which was attended by thousands of LGBT+ supporters, showed a group of around 10 neo-Nazis marching surrounded by police officers.

Dressed in black with a number carrying firearms and shields, the NSM marchers tore apart pride flags and pushed over at least one counter-demonstrator. One even appeared to urinate on an Israeli flag. (pictured above)

Sacramento PRIDE Reverses Decision, Will Now ALLOW LGBT Police To March In Uniform

Sacramento PRIDE Reverses Decision, Will Now ALLOW LGBT Police To March In Uniform

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Following immense push-back from the greater LGBT community uniformed police officers will again be allowed to participate in Sacramento PRIDE events this weekend, and a new set of police department policies will be enacted to build trust with the LGBT community.

The announcement made Thursday by the Sacramento Police Department and Sacramento LGBT Community Center, reversed a decision the center announced last week that uniformed officers would not be allowed to participate in order to “protect” transgender people and QPOC who “experience fear and anxiety provoked by the uniform.”

After an immense outcry from the greater LGBT community that exclusion is not an LGBT value and further negotiations with SPD, the police department agreed to create an LGBTQ liaison in its outreach unit, and create a standing “LGBT Community Advisory Committee” to recommend policies to better serve the LGBT community and “remove all barriers” for the community to interact with law enforcement. The SPD will also co-create a new training program that “elevates the voices of the “marginalized” trans and QPOC communities and discusses the role of implicit bias,” the release said.

Meanwhile the roughly 16 lower staff members with the Sacramento LGBT Community Center released a statement Thursday night saying they have taken a no-confidence vote against their Board of Directors following the decision to allow officers in uniform to attend PRIDE events and are demanding the immediate resignation of Carlos Marquez, the board’s president, and any board members who agreed to allow officers to march in their uniforms.

We wholeheartedly disagree with the decision that this concession to the police force is a powerful symbolic and visual cue that prioritizes those with the most power and influence over our most marginalized community members whether they are transgender, nonbinary, Black, Brown and other POC folks, intersex, undocumented, disabled, unhoused, sex workers and others in the community that are often ignored, misgendered, abused and murdered by folks in SacPD and other law enforcement uniforms.

There is no word on what the “collective action” will be.

Sacramento PRIDE will take place June 8-9 at Capitol Mall.

Columbus, Indiana: Mike Pence's Hometown To Host First PRIDE Festival - April 14, 2018

Columbus, Indiana: Mike Pence’s Hometown To Host First PRIDE Festival – April 14, 2018

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Vice President Mike Pence was born and raised in Columbus, Indiana. And his tenure as governor of that state made national headlines when he signed the controversial anti-LGBT Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law.

Over the past few months, the vice president again made national headlines on this topic — first, in a Twitter exchange with openly gay U.S. figure skater Adam Rippon ahead of the Olympic Games, then as comedian John Oliver trolled him with a children’s book in which the Pence family bunny was imagined in a gay relationship.

In a show of support and solidarity to the LGBT community Mike Pence’s hometown plans to hold its first  ever LGBT Pride Festival next month.

Erin Bailey, a high school student in Columbus who came up up with the idea and is helping to organize it told CNN on Wednesday that she wanted to host to the event to “make a change” in her community and in the country.

“I decided to host Columbus Pride Festival because I realized we didn’t have anything quite like it in Columbus,” she said adding that though she believes the Pence is “openly anti-LGBT, it doesn’t mean that the rest of us in his hometown are.”
\Samantha Aulick, a Columbus resident who is also helping Bailey organize the event, said her wife has lived in Columbus for more than 40 years and has never participated in a Pride event there. “We live in a conservative community that may actually be the most liberal in Indiana,” said Aulick, who operates the only LGBT Business Enterprise in their community, Artisan Foodworks. “But it is still Indiana and what created Mike Pence.”
 
Columbus, Indiana is one of a few towns in the state that has added LGBT protections to city ordinances
 

The event, which is set to take place April 14, will include educational booths, music, drag performances, rainbow-themed food, pride swag and an art show.

Back2Stonewall will be there covering the event and invites all to come and join to not only to support it and make it a success but to also make a strong political statement 

Amazon Tells GOP Senators It Won’t Sell Books That “Frame LGBTQ+ Identity As Mental Illness”

Rainbow Flag To Be Permanently Installed At Stonewall National Monument October 11th.

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For first time that the LGBT Pride flag will wave over federally-funded land when the original Rainbow Flag created by the late Gilbert Baker will be unveiled in a special ceremony on Wednesday, October 11 at 12 Noon at the historic Stonewall National Monument in NYC, thanks to the efforts of grassroots activists.

It will claim a permanent home under the stewardship of the National Park Service.

Stonewall National Monument is located in Christopher Street Park in New York’s Greenwich Village. The park is on the corner of Christopher Street and 7th Avenue South.

The event will be emceed by Gay USA television co-host Ann Northrop and longtime San Francisco AIDS and LGBT activist Michael Petrelis who spearheaded this initiative.

“It is a victory for our community to have these symbolic colors flying majestically over our Stonewall, designated as a National Monument by President Obama, even as our LGBTQ brothers and sisters are under attack by the current regime in power,” said Petrelis. He went on to say, “As we gather today, we are reminded of another October 11, thirty years ago, when the names of fallen comrades were symbollically celebrated on another national monument – the AIDS Quilt – during the reign of another President who waged and attack against us.”

October 11 also marks the thirtieth anniversary of the historic 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian Gay Rights–when the NAMES Project AIDS Quilt was unfurled on the National Mall and coincides with annual National Coming Out Day, a day celebrating the idea that all members of the LGBT community should be able to live their lives openly, honestly, and with pride.

 

 

KKK Members Crash Alabama Pride Event, Klan Members Speak Their Mind (VIDEO)

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KKK Members Crash Alabama Pride Event, Klan Members Speak (VIDEO)

Several members of white nationalist groups dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes and other regalia staged a protest at a Sunday event in Florence described by organizers as Northwest Alabama’s first-ever LGBT pride parade.

The relatively rare sight of people wearing KKK robes in public left many of the hundreds of LGBTQ folks and allies who attended the march feeling “shocked and then embarrassed,” according to Benjamin Newbern, executive director of the Equality Shoals advocacy group.

“It was just crazy. This was a huge day for the LGBT community with the fact that nothing like this had happened before with members of the LGBTQ community marching in the streets here,” Newbern said. “Hate has always been here but it reared its ugly head yesterday to show that it’s still around.” – AL.com

As you can see from the Florence, Alabama Police Department FB post above/. It was no big deal to them and as normal as blueberry pie.

Hear the Klan in their own words below.