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Determined to be proud
Advocate, The, June 19, 2007 by Lawrence Ferber
In April, Seattle's Out and Proud announced it wouldn't hold its annual gay pride festival this year, so most of the scheduled entertainment was shuffled to other venues. The cancelation elicited a local and national shudder. After all, last year Charlotte, N.C.'s pride folded with no official reason furnished by organizers. Coalition of Conscience, a conservative religious group that had protested the Charlotte event in 2005, proclaimed victory. Could Pride be in trouble? And are the picket-waving homophobes responsible? Not quite.
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The truth is, money is tight in many cities. A debt of $102,000 drove the Seattle group into bankruptcy. But Charlotte Pride appears to have been a victim of its organizers' burnout, which may have been exacerbated by the presence of the antigay protester. "The Coalition of Conscience made it a miserable event," recalls Raine Cole, a former Charlotte Pride volunteer. So the organizers devised ways to keep the protesters away, holding the newly titled Pride Charlotte on private property. They ultimately carried out a successful shindig. The second edition is scheduled for this August. "It was fabulous," says Cole, "and over 6,000 people attended."
COPYRIGHT 2007 Liberation Publications, Inc.
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