Journal: Nearly 700 attend Triad Pride Festival
Wow… The Winston-Salem Journal actually offered some pretty positive coverage to yesterday’s Triad Pride Festival in Downtown Greensboro. I’m surprised; shocked really.
From the Journal:
Nearly 700 attend Triad Pride Festival
Gay-pride gathering celebrates diversity, chairman says
By Fran Daniel
JOURNAL REPORTER
Sunday, August 26, 2007
The Triad Pride Festival at Festival Park in Greensboro yesterday drew more than 680 people, including a contingent from Winston-Salem, organizers said.
Pictured right: Performer Anjelica Dust, also known as Bradley Thompson of Greensboro, lip-syncs to a song at the Triad Pride Festival. (Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll)
Alternative Resources of the Triad, based in Greensboro, sponsored Triad Pride Festival 2007, which started Thursday and will run through today.
“It’s a festival to celebrate the diversity within our community,” said Eric Hinson, the festival’s chairman.
Hinson was among the organizers who began working two years ago to organize the gay-pride festival. Before coming to Greensboro, he lived in Charlotte and Knoxville, Tenn., and decided that if those communities could have gay festivals, then so could the Triad.
Alternative Resources also sponsors OutGreensboro.com and the Greensboro Out at the Movies series.
Club Odyssey on Country Club Road in Winston-Salem and several venues in Greensboro have held parties throughout the festival and will continue them tonight.
Hinson said that a festival such as Triad Pride is about generating a sense of acceptance within the community.
“It’s important for not only gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people to be able to come together and express pride openly in public, but it’s also an education for people who aren’t familiar with us,” he said.
Festival-goers said that people are more accepting of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people than in the past.
“I think that the universities and the amount of just opened-minded people in the Triad area have helped us,” Hinson said.
Members of Metropolitan Community Church of Winston-Salem have found that gays and lesbians face less discrimination from businesses these days than they do from some schools and churches.
One of the handouts that the church provided at the rally states that some churches use the Bible frequently as a weapon to “bash” lesbians and gays.
“Our church is completely welcoming,” said the Rev. Joe Cobb, the pastor of Metropolitan Community Church. “We have people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight. They are really there because they are experiencing unconditional love and welcome.”
As of right now I haven’t been able to find any coverage on the Greensboro News & Record’s website, but the article from the Journal was awesome.
I had a chance to talk to the organizers of the Festival last night. They said that closer to 750 attended the Festival, not the 680 the article says.
Technorati Tags: Triad Pride, Alternative Resources of the Triad, ART, OutGreensboro, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, gay pride, Winston-Salem Journal, North Carolina
Matt, 22, is an LGBT journalist, activist and youth advocate currently living and working in Charlotte, N.C., where he serves as the Editor of Q-Notes, the Carolinas' LGBT news source. A native of Winston-Salem, N.C., Matt attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is still continuing to pursue his bachelors degree. He is the Owner & Editor of InterstateQ.com and has been active in LGBT advocacy work since the age of 14.
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