That giant snapping sound you heard this week was the gay and lesbian community splitting in two over the proper way to celebrate Pride Weekend in Seattle. On the one hand the festivities, particularly the Running of the Gays, have gotten too large for Capitol Hill. We have a sense that the phrase "too many straight people" belongs in that last sentence somewhere. On the other hand, there’s a strong feeling that the proper place for Pride events is the Hill and only the Hill. What to do, what to do...
Seattle Pride, the organization traditionally associated with the parade and festival, announced after last year’s event that the Hill could no longer contain it and the 2006 party would be held downtown. The idea that the Pride parade should be front and center instead of tucked away in Capitol Hill also played a part. Kinda like marching to the choir up on the Hill, the thinking went. So this year’s Pride will gather at Westlake Center Sunday morning and travel down 4th to Seattle Center where the standard Pride festivities like "Check back soon for more detailed event information" and "The requested URL was not found on this server" will be held. The SeattlePride.org website currently doesn’t have any information on the other Pride festivities, in other words.
Even Seattlest was able to see a second Pride parade happening on Broadway this year from a mile away. The LBGT Community Center recently sent the flier you see attached to this post in miniscule and unreadable form (and here full size) to its mailing list. "We will march as we always do, right up Broadway," it says, thereby fulfilling the first of Seattlest’s 706 prophecies.
Oh wait, it’s not competing - This one is on Saturday.
While the flyer sells the Broadway parade as a return to tradition (maybe a maintenance of tradition?) the language elsewhere makes it clear that the Broadway parade will distinguish itself from the 4th Ave parade in that this will be a political parade. The LGBT Center is working "to support those that want to continue the tradition of a political march and rally on Broadway/Capitol Hill," according to Seattle Gay News. Executive Director of the LGBT Center Shannon Thomas confirmed in an email to Seattlest, "Indeed, there is a Political March on Broadway on Saturday evening, June 24th - the Raise Your Voice March/Rally." ( tags ours) We’re guessing the "political march" distinction has more to do with their permit application to the city than any actual focus planned for the event, and we could be wrong, but if it looks like the Pride Parade, and it smells like Dykes on Bikes (the bikes, not the dykes)...
Why the city would encourage Out and Proud, the official Pride people, to move their parade downtown and then issue a Broadway parade permit to another group for the day before we can’t answer.
Thomas made it a point to assure us that the Broadway march was not competing with the downtown march and it does seem like the two will at least attempt to play nice. "We conferred with Seattle Out and Proud so as to not seem duplicative or competitive," says the LGBT director. Previously she said in a press release "Not having activities at Seattle Center in the evening on Saturday allows folks to come back to the Hill if they want to participate in events there. We'll also be working together to have shuttle service from downtown to the Hill." Seattlest was unable to reach Out and Proud to verify that they in fact won’t be holding their "Check back soon for more detailed event information" Gala at Seattle Center Saturday evening.
Well, if there’s anything better than a gay parade in June it’s two gay parades in June. Hopefully they’ll both be well attended, but Seattlest can already see ourselves approaching it as an either/or proposition come Pride weekend.
1 Gay Pride Parade 11am on Sunday, June, 25, from Westlake to Seattle Center via 4th.
1 Gay Pride Parade 6pm on Saturday, June, 24, from SCCC to Volunteer Park via Broadway.
Pick your poison.
This post cribbed in its entirety from the Tacky Tourist Club blog.
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Thanks for the too-generous hat-tip, Dan. Your great summary of this year's Prideful mess inspired us to wrack our brains a bit and remember some of the stuff that we had tried to forget about the history of this event.
The memorial regurgitation should be the top post for a while since we're not all that prolific.
holy shit is that a good read. If that'd been posted a little earlier it could have saved me from appearing dead wrong on the political thing.
I'm not sure you're wrong about the significance of the "political" in the Broadway march. For one thing, I'm pretty sure that its disorganizers are trying to avoid parade fees, as you suggest. But the character of the march will depend a lot on the "celebration" folks (to use the code word) and whether they respond to what kind of seems to be an invitation to join the Broadway event. Yeah, it happens on a Saturday evening -- important business hours for many of those outfits -- but maybe they'll still join in just to thumb noses at the SOP disorganizers of the 4th Ave. parade. Maybe.
aaaaaaawwwwwwwwwww can't we all just get along?