The Next Step for Gay Pride

Hampton Roads Pridefest take place today in downtown Norfolk at Town Point Park.  Very large crowds are anticipated and the event is now Norfolk's largest festival event after Harbor Fest.  Sponsors include not only the City of Norfolk which not too many years ago treated the LGBT community as if it was radioactive, and Newport News Shipbuilding, currently Virginia's largest employer and the company that builds America's nuclear aircraft carriers.  

The event was preceded by events around the area virtually every day this past week - more events are tomorrow in Virginia Beach - including the "Block Party" held the last number of years in Scope, Norfolk's sports and concert arena.  Having attended and closed down the party, it was packed, with the area floor completely filled with hundreds, if not thousands dancing while and even larger number socializing.  The Block Party alone is far larger than Pridefest was for many, many years and the crowd covered a wide gamut of ages and every ethnic group was there, white, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Pacific Islander. Trump supporters would have thoroughly hated seeing such a multi-racial crowd getting along and having fun together.  Things have come a long way since I came out going on 18 years ago.  

Yet much remains to be done - both here here in Virginia where, if the Democrats take control of the General Assembly in the November 2019 elections, LGBT Virginians will finally have non-discrimination protections - and in many parts of America where bigots and Christofascists hold sway, encouraged in their message of hate by the Trump/Pence regime, the Republican Party, and, of course, scamvangelists lining their pockets with money as they pervert the Gospel message.   To accomplish these needed changes, perhaps a new model is needed.  Self-proclaimed LGBT activist groups like the Human Rights Campaign ("HRC") and Equality Virginia ("EV") increasingly seem most focused on raising money to support ever higher salaries to their leadership and larger staffs.  Actually getting things done to benefit the wider array of the LGBT community has faded in importance despite lip service to the contrary. 

In a piece in New York Magazine, gay conservative Andrew Sullivan looks at where the LGBT community finds itself today both in terms of positive improvement and criticism of some gay activists and organizations like HRC and EV that have lost their way.  Some of what Sullivan says is on point, and some of it is out in the weeds due to his failure to let go of some aspects of conservatism and religion.   Here are excerpts:

There has never been a better time or place in the history of the world to be gay than in 2019 and in the West.

I think it’s worth repeating that — especially in front of the younger generation — because it gives us critical perspective on where we are now and where we are headed. If you glance at media aimed at gays, lesbians, and transgender people, you might imagine we are living in a state of siege. Gay students arriving in college in 2019 will be told instantly that they are oppressed in countless ways, and trans students will be told that they can be oppressed by gay people, as well. Check out the website for the biggest gay lobbying group, the Human Rights Campaign, and you will find that gays and lesbians and transgender people “have been under constant attack” since Trump became president.

And, yes, there has been some blowback, as one might expect after an astonishing decade of faster progress than in any civil-rights movement in history. The impulsively renewed ban on transgender service members makes no sense, was enacted by presidential whim (a tweet, no less), defended with arguments that collapse upon scrutiny, and opposed by much of the military brass. With luck, law, and lobbying, it will fall. There has also been executive action to defend the religious freedom of those fundamentalist Christians who make up a core of the Trump base. But it says a huge amount that Christianists are this panicked. They keep losing both secular and theological arguments — along with many members, especially among the young.

And look at what remains: marriage equality, even in Alabama; corporate America competing to brand itself as pro-gay (sometimes to an excruciating degree); full integration of gay service members; a lesbian mayor of Chicago and, in Corey Johnson, a future gay mayor of New York; a married gay man among the main contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination; a cornucopia of media-affirming gay and trans equality; openly gay and lesbian figures in almost every sphere of American life; a preventative pill for HIV and a pill to all but eradicate it from the living; and explicit legal protection from discrimination for half of the gay people in the country.
 I’m not saying there isn’t more to be done — laws against discrimination in employment and public accommodations in those states that don’t yet have those protections, for example . . . 
 It is, I know, sometimes hard to take “yes” for an answer. It is also prudent, given human history, to be vigilant in defending the gains. But this level of openness and equality was unimaginable only a decade ago. Compared with the 1950s, when “sodomy” was illegal in every state, when the government hounded gay men and women in public service out of their jobs and demonized them as inherently treasonous, when gay people were barred from entering the country, and when psychiatrists believed them to be mentally ill, this is close to utopia. Compared with the 1980s and early 1990s, when gay men found themselves circling the drain of their own extinction, and witnessed horrors and pain and stigma as never before, this is incredible.
 Because gay men and women are almost always brought up by straight parents, this history is hard to pass on. And so perspectives can be warped. Those whose livelihoods are built on defending victims have an interest in sustaining a victim paradigm for gay America, in which they are the saviors. And victim narratives are comfortable. They allow us to avoid responsibility for our own problems, while transferring it to others. . . . They actually provide status among today’s elites — and can help you advance your own career solely on the basis of your orientation if you want to go to college or get a job at a major corporation.

I think it’s time to shuck off this narrative, because it is a crude simplification of the gay experience, because it is profoundly out of date, and because it focuses us on other people we cannot always change while ignoring things closer to home that we can. What we need now, I think, is a narrative more productive and constructive, less about the harm the world can do to us, and more about the good we can give back to the world.

It will mean earning a living, raising kids in some cases, pursuing careers, sustaining marriages, and everything every straight person does without thinking twice about it. Being gay is not a political act; it is about deeper things than politics: love, above all, but sex and relationships as well. . . . We seek, in this sense, a kind of irrelevance for our sexual orientation — a world in which the hetero and homo categories define none of us, straight or gay, and the category of human includes us all.

But there’s more to the souls of gay folk than just this kind of normalcy, it seems to me. Unlike straights, we remain a specific minority, with life experiences that do shape us differently, and a way of life that will always, in some ways, be a subculture, as well as a counterculture. Equality and virtual normalcy need not be seen as ends, but as platforms for something larger, just as they are for other enfranchised minorities. Integration is not the same as assimilation.

This does indeed require pride in what we have that is distinct, a pride that is worth celebrating once a year. We have as gay people, it seems to me, a gift in our sometimes hidden sexual and emotional difference, a gift that teaches us at quite a young age not to judge a book by its dust-jacket, or to dismiss the different because they make us, at first, uncomfortable. The suffering that will always accompany gay and lesbian teens — the suffering that is a function of being so different at such a crucial age — can be deployed as adults, if we so choose, to see and alleviate the suffering of others.
 [G]ay people’s lopsided contribution to the arts, fashion, design, and aesthetics are ways in which we can reflect society back to itself with greater depth and beauty.
 These gay gifts can be shared. They always have been, of course, but under acute duress, and often silenced or unknown. What I’m emphasizing here is embracing these roles more explicitly as our charism, defining ourselves more clearly as human society’s indispensable regenerators, pillars, and buttresses. Gay male friendships can inform straight male ones — and surely for the better. Gay teachers can be a special boon to kids whose own family may not be engaged or supportive. We can be gay uncles and aunts, an often invaluable resource — financially and otherwise — for our siblings’ kids. 

Gay scholars and aesthetes can protect and preserve our common inheritance. Gay entrepreneurs can invigorate decaying neighborhoods and innovate new ways of living. Gay writers can become, as they often are, the strongest champions of free speech — because, for so long, it was the only right we had, the indispensable resource to let each other know that we existed.

As the long night of persecution gives way to the dawning of integration, let’s take a moment both to remember the legions of human souls who knew nothing but darkness, to acknowledge the vast numbers of gay people around the world for whom such freedom still doesn’t exist — but also to recognize this unique and pivotal chance for renewal and reinvention in the West. We should indeed have pride in our past, our selves, and our lives as survivors. But as we peer into the future, and to what we can still bring to the world, let us also know joy.

One of the most powerful forms of activism is simply living one's life openly and proudly. Yes, if one lives in rural areas of red states, that can be difficult and perhaps life threatening.  But the more of us that do this and demonstrate our normalcy to the straight world, the more positive change there will be.  Demonstrate daily that we are not the "other" to be feared but rather friends, neighbors and positive participants in our communities.  Yes, it can be scary, especially for those of older generations who grew up living in fear, but it is the way forward.  It is something the husband and I try to do every day be it at work, social gatherings, participating in a sailing regatta, . . . the list goes on and on.

The Trillion Dollar LGBT Market Niche

A portion of the crowd at PrideFest 2017

When I was fired from a large local law firm after I came out in mid-life - a gay partner it was said would offend the sensibilities of the firm's "conservative" client - I made a concerted effort to market to the sizable LGBT market.  Who better to address the legal concerns of LGBT citizens than a gay attorney who knew about bigotry and discrimination first hand (hence my win as the best attorney in Outwire 757 recent reader's choice awards).  As part of that effort, I was a founder of the local LGBT chamber of commerce, Hampton Roads Business OutReach ("HRBOR") In the years since, both locally and nationally, more and more businesses have discovered that smart business means marketing to the LGBT community and other minority communities, e.g. the Hispanic-American community. Some businesses have suffered the attempted wrath of Christofascists who regularly have called ineffective boycotts against national companies advertising to the LGBT market, but have been undeterred (and typically saw they earnings increase).  A piece in Inside Business underscores why marketing to the LGBT community makes sense.  The explanation is ultimately simple:  LGBT individuals make up a trillion dollar market and have money to spend.  Moreover, they are loyal to those who are LGBT friendly - locally, I can tell you which law firms to avoid if you are LGBT - and engage in word of mouth promotion of merchants and professionals that they respect.  Here are some article excerpts:

Rainbow flags [could] be seen on the streets of Hampton Roads as the region prepare[d] for a series of celebrations for the LGBTQ community, wrapping up a month of gay pride celebrations.

Hampton Roads PrideFest alone expect[ed] 25,000 to 30,000 visitors from across the Mid-Atlantic for Saturday's festival in Norfolk's Town Point Park. Many of these visitors have booked hotels for the weekend and restaurants, stores and other tourism-related businesses expect big business.

The estimated purchasing power of LGBTQ adults in the U.S. ranges around $1 trillion. Witeck Communications released a study last year that showed a four percent increase to $917 billion while the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce estimates buying power at $1.7 trillion.

The Hampton Roads region is no exception. In fact, a 2015 Gallup study ranked the Virginia Beach-Norfolk metropolitan area as 12th out of 50 metropolitan areas with the highest proportion of LGBTQ adults (4.4 percent of our population). Old Dominion University's 2016 State of the Region Report estimated the LGBTQ working-age adult's average income in Hampton Roads totaled $2.017 billion, about 4.8 percent of total income of adults between the ages of 25 and 64.

This large purchasing power isn’t because LGBTQ adults are earning more than their heterosexual counterparts. In fact, studies cited in the State of the Region show gay men and lesbian women earn about five and nine percent less, respectively, than their heterosexual male coworkers.   Rather, this purchasing power comes from large disposable incomes due to the fact LGBTQ households often have two full incomes without any children and related expenses . . .

Much of this disposable income goes toward travel, hence the interest of the tourism industries. Virginia Tourism Corporation data shows LGBTQ visitors stay longer and spend more than their non-LGBTQ counterparts.

The Downtown Norfolk Council emailed local businesses with a list of suggestions on how to make the most of the gay pride festival and potential customers. Suggestions included showing off rainbow clothes, flags, signs, drinks and food along with offering discounts to people who wear rainbow colors in support. The council even offered to distribute rainbow flags and necklaces for free.

Ryan Downey of the Hampton Convention and Visitor Bureau said although there is nothing in Hampton that is exclusively for the LGBTQ consumer, the bureau hosts occasional meeting of local business owners to discuss LGBTQ events and efforts.

Pride events have included a river cruise, in which all proceeds went to ACCESS AIDS, and a historical feature on growing up gay in Hampton Roads called “Our Story, Our Time” presented by the Hampton History Museum.

The Virginia Beach Convention and Visitor's Bureau has produced an in-flight video for American Airlines featuring LGBTQ locals along with photos of LGBTQ couples, to market weddings at the convention center and the city's ViBe district.

The ViBe district boasts the Rainbow Crosswalk at 19th Street and Cypress Avenue. Virginia Beach leadership, all the way up to the mayor, has embraced this intentional, organic symbol by a local artist . . . .

Several organizations aim to help businesses overcome the marketing costs of advertising themselves as a destination for LGBTQ consumers.

The Hampton Roads Business OutReach aims to give local businesses national exposure. Tracy Skinner, the outreach group's president, encourages businesses to become certified as an LGBTQ business enterprise through the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in order to do business with larger corporations like Hilton and American Airlines.

Similarly, the Virginia Tourism Corporation urges business to add a free listing at Virginia.Org, which reaches 13 million annually. It also offers an extensive LGBTQ tourism resource guide. 

LGBTQ acceptance has been on the rise in the last decade since the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." Although many are encouraged by the growing acceptance, tourism industries of competing cities have struggled to “break through the noise.” . . . "It’s not enough to just slap a rainbow flag on something and check the box.”

As the article notes, locally, the LGBT community is over a $2 billion market.  What savvy business owner would not want to pursue that type of market?

Winners of the 2017 Outwire757 "Best of" Awards

A Lesson for HR Pride: The Alt-Right Is Wooing Gays to Fascism

Self-loathing gays suffering from internalized homophobia?

I recently wrote about the disturbing phenomenon of - self-loathing? -  gays voting for and otherwise supporting anti-gay politicians and political parties.  True, it is an minority of the LGBT community that engages in this form of ultimately self destructive behavior, but it remains troublesome.  Now, Hampton Roads Pride has stepped into this excrement by granting a vendor booth to the local "Gays for Trump" organization. They will be present at tomorrow’s PrideFest in Town Point Park.  Having anything Trump at PrideFest is disgusting, in my view, but it gets far worse: 

Joe Jervis, quoting a GAYRVA piece notes that the group in question, "Gays for Trump, was largely spearheaded by a 757 local, Scott Presler, who worked for the Trump campaign under gubernatorial failure and Confederate Flag fetishist Corey Stewart until they led a protest at the Republican National Committee headquarters in DC prompting Trump to fire him . . . . Presler is a main organizer for the extremist group ACT For America, which held dozens of anti-Muslim rallies across the country last weekend. The SPLC describes ACT For America as “the largest grassroots anti-Muslim group in the country.”  

Outwire757 correctly notes that "the Trump administration, despite promising to be a “friend of the gays” on the campaign trail, has undertaken a laundry list of anti-LGBTQ actions, from rolling back protections for transgender students in public schools, to removing any mention of LGBTQ from federal employment policies, to removing sexual orientation and gender identity questions from the 2020 census, too being the first President in eight years to not proclaim June LGBTQ Pride Month… and much much much more."

Having this group at PrideFest is an insult to those in the community who have labored long and hard to advance LGBT equality - and put up a great deal of money to sponsor Pride Fest.  Obviously, some one at HR Pride failed to vette this group.  Similarly, in my opinion, there needs change in direction from what I see as a too GOP friendly leadership at HR Pride that may be in part due to naivete.   Having been in the GOP for the better part of a decade years ago and a City Committee member for 8 years, the party will NOT be changed from inside. Anyone who thinks otherwise is allowing themselves to be used.  Sadly, the situation is part of an even large problem of some in the LGBT community actively supporting our enemies to the harm of the majority of the LGBT community and other minority groups.   A lengthy piece in Slate looks at how gays are being wooed by the Al-Right and used for its purposes, not civil rights for all citizens.  Here are excerpts:

At the National Policy Institute’s 2015 conference, alt-right star Richard Spencer’s annual Nazi-fest, a speaker named Jack Donovan exhorted the crowd "to leave the world the way you entered it, kicking and screaming and covered in somebody else’s blood." The same year, in the pages of the The Occidental Observer, one of the most prominent white nationalist webzines, another alt-righter, James J. O’Meara, held forth about how "behind the Negro, hidden away, as always, is the darker, more sinister figure of the Judeo. The Negro is the shock troop. The Jew is the ultimate beneficiary.” Aside from being open fascists and “white racialists,” Donovan and O’Meara have another thing in common: They’re both out gay men.

In his book The Homo and the Negro, O’Meara says that gay white men represent the best of what Western culture has to offer because of their "intelligence" and "beauty," and that "Negroes" represent the worst, being incapable of "achievement." Donovan calls women "whores" and "bitches," and, when a questioner on Reddit asked him his views of the Holocaust, responded, "What is this Holocaust thing? I’m drawing a blank."

Both have become influential figures in the alt-right; horribly, they are not the only gay men to respond to an olive branch lately offered by white nationalism. In the United States, unlike in Europe, out gay men have never been welcome in white supremacist groups. The Klan and neo-Nazi groups, the main previous incarnations of white hate in this country, were and still are violently anti-queer. And while a subset of openly gay men has always been conservative (or, as in all populations, casually racist), they never sought to join the racist right. That was before groups like NPI, Counter-Currents Publishing, and American Renaissance started putting out the welcome mat. Since around 2010, some (though by no means all) groups in the leadership of the white nationalist movement have been inviting out cis gay men to speak at their conferences, write for their magazines, and be interviewed in their journals.  And there are many more gay men (and some trans women) who have been profoundly influenced by two white nationalist ideas: the "threat" posed by Islam and the "danger" posed by immigrants. Donovan tries to sugarcoat his own racist beliefs when speaking to his main fan base, gay men who like his macho looks and straight men from the "pickup artist" culture and the manosphere who are desperately trying to learn from him how to be manly. . . . he functions as beefcake for the neofascist cause. He’s parlayed his butch allure into a brand, earning money from a line of T-shirts and wrist guards that say things like BARBARIAN and a series of books that seek to instruct both straight and gay men in how to become more masculine and in particular, more "violent." But when Donovan says violence, he means violence. This is not BDSM. "The ability to use violence effectively is the highest value of masters," Donovan said in a 2017 speech at a fascist think tank in Germany. "It is the primary value of those who create order, who create worlds. Violence is a golden value. Violence rules. Violence is not evil–it is elemental." . . .  it's straight-up people hurting and killing other people he's endorsing.
 And what is all this violence for? Creating small, decentralized "homelands" in this country separated by—surprise!—race. He enthusiastically embraces an idea the alt-right calls "pan-secessionism," under which, as Donovan says in his book A Sky Without Eagles, "gangs" of white men would form "autonomous zones" for themselves and white women, where women "would not be permitted to rule or take part in … political life." The gangs would enforce racial boundary lines, because, as Donovan puts it, whites have "radically different values [and] cultures" than other people, and "loyalty requires preference. It requires discrimination." If Donovan is a caricature of the gay Nazi strongman—almost a personification of the phrase "body fascism" (which was originally used by gay men to critique other gay men's obsession with perfect gym bodies)—his counterpart, James O'Meara, is an embodiment of something that could barely be imagined until now: Nazi camp. I hesitate to write that phrase, because it's almost painful to acknowledge that camp—that subversive, gay "turning" of seriousness into playfulness and straight narratives into gay ones—could be deployed by a Nazi. . . . we no longer have the luxury of assuming that queer tropes are inherently, and trans-historically, progressive. Of course, neither O’Meara nor Donovan actually support gay rights. This is partly because they don't believe in "civil rights." Although O'Meara wants to be part of an imagined elite band of men who love each other and rule society—his version of an Aryan fantasy called the Männerbund—he doesn't want to support, as he put it in the interview with Alternative Right, "some sniveling queen demanding 'my rights!' … 'The plight of the homosexual' … is a Leftist myth." Donovan says explicitly that straight people should be given more power and privileges than gay folks, because their "reproductive sexuality" is superior to ours. Both men openly detest lesbians and trans and genderqueer people. . . . .
 So why are white nationalists smiling in our direction? Most importantly, because it worked in Europe. In Holland, France, Germany, and Sweden, white nationalists have deliberately used LGBTQ people and Muslims as a wedge against one another. Bringing queer people in, in both Europe and America, is a way to grow the neo-fascist movement. It is also a way to court millennials, who are consistently supportive of gay rights even when they swing conservative on other issues. It's a testament to the fact that, in some ways, the queer movement has already won the battle for public opinion. The far right could not beat us, so they decided to join us—in the most superficial way possible. Ultimately, it's a form of pinkwashing, which YourDictionary defines as “the practice of representing something … as gay-friendly in order to soften or downplay aspects of its reputation considered negative. There is another potential benefit: If white supremacists can equate "Muslims" with attacks on LGBTQ people—and women—they might be able to attract liberals and moderates into a kind of anti-immigrant "big tent."

This is what HR Pride unwittingly welcomed to 2017 PrideFest.  

Pride and Understanding LGBT History

It's Pride weekend here in Hampton Roads, Virginia and wonderful events are planned that will go on despite the horror that occurred last weekend in Orlando,  Yes, the police presence will be significantly increased and local offices of federal offices will likely be involved.  Yet again, among the information/recruiting booths on Saturday's main event will be the CIA.  Times have truly changed in some ways, but in others, much needs to be done.  Today, the June issue of VEER Magazine hits the streets and includes my column on "Pride and Understanding LGBT History."  I hope you will check it out.  Here are brief excerpts:  

June is Pride month and once again Hampton Roads Pride Fest will take place in downtown Norfolk’s Town Point Park.  This year’s event is on June 18.  The event now rivals the largest festivals in Norfolk and some have said that only Harbor Fest is larger.  When I first came out in mid-life, few could have envisioned how mainstream, if you will, the LGBT community has become.  Back then, same sex relationships could get you a felony conviction under Virginia’s sodomy statute.  My first Pride event was in 2003 and the venue was a hidden back portion of Lakewood Park.  Perhaps a few hundred were in attendance.  Fast forward to 2016, and the crowd this year could approach 20,000 people.  Pride is a time to be proud about one’s self, but also about LGBT individuals across the globe and throughout time.

This sea change in acceptance and visibility did not happen overnight and much work still remains to be done in Virginia and across America, not to mention across the globe.   Yes, through Supreme Court decisions and hard fought legislative victories, the sodomy laws used to persecute gays in Virginia are no more, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is now on the trash heap of history and same sex marriage is legal across the nation.  But, employment non-discrimination protections, housing non-discrimination and other protections remain non-existent under Virginia law and in roughly 28 other states.  Organizations such as Hampton Roads Business Outreach (“HRBOR”), the local gay and gay friendly chamber of commerce, HR Pride, and Equality Virginia continue to strive for full LGBT equality in the business community and under Virginia’s civil laws.

Indeed, members of the LGBT community are everywhere, in every culture and throughout history.  Peruse a page and Wikipedia on “LGBT history” and one quickly sees that be it ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, pre-Columbian America, Persia, Japan, China and even India, same sex relations were tolerated, if not always fully accepted.  Just a few notable LGBT individuals from history as compiled by The Bilerico Project  . . .

A wonderful source to learn more of this hidden history is a book entitled “The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies,” the end product of over ten years of historical research.  My husband and I received a copy as a gift from is two friends – both historians – who gave a dinner party us as a “wedding gift.”  As noted above, the book concludes that acceptance of homosexuality and bisexuality on the part of much of society historically have been the norm – just as it is in many other parts of the animal kingdom – and that it was the rise of the Roman Catholic Church that lead to homophobia as we know it today. 

So how did this happen?  In a nutshell, the Catholic Church’s bizarre abhorrence of all things sexual that developed in the Middle Ages that was spearheaded by so-called Church fathers who were obsessed with all things sexual, and who were, in my view, mentally disturbed to say the least. 

Thankfully, this religious based tide of animus and ignorance is subsiding, but horrors continue to be inflicted on LGBT individuals by both “godly Christians” and Islamic fundamentalists.  Meanwhile, those of us fortunate enough to live in America and Hampton Roads have much to be proud about and can look at our history with pride.  If you have never attended, consider coming to Pride Fest.

The 2016 HP Pride Launch Event - Changing Hearts and Minds

The husband and I attended the HR Pride 2016 launch event this afternoon which works to raises funds for the June 18, 2016, Pride fest Event in Town Point Park on the downtown Norfolk waterfront.  The event has transformed dramatically since I was first on the HR Pride board of directors some years ago. The launch party has been equally transformed and this year was a standing room only event at the East Beach Pool/Club House hosted  by Lt. Governor Ralph Northam and his wonderful wife Pam.  The number of politicos in attendance has likewise increased dramatically and GOP House of Delegates member Scott Taylor was in attendance, demonstrating that a least some Republicans are waking up to the reality that an all welcoming Virginia is good for business. 

Perhaps the most surprising sponsors who pledged financial support were (i) Newport News Shipbuilding and WHRO who joined Decorum Furniture at the presenting sponsor level, and (ii) the Central Intelligence Agency - that's right, the CIA - which was a well into the 4 digit sponsor.  Other surprising sponsors were the City of Norfolk and two competing mayoral candidates. I lost track in the amount pledged today, but suffice it to say it was far in excess of $125,000.00.  As we have done for the last number of years, the husband and I are again sponsors of this amazing event which has become the largest outdoor festival in Norfolk after Harborfest.

Thirteen year ago when I attended my first "out in the Park" event it consisted of a few hundred people tucked out of sight in the back of one of Norfolk's city parks.  Now the event involves close to 20,000 attendees and the politicians - at least on the Democrat side of the aisle - who acted as if the LGBT community was radioactive, cannot go far enough to demonstrate their support for the LGBT community and LGBT equality under the civil laws. It has been a phenomenal sea change.

Sadly, the Virginia GOP continues to prostitute itself to the Christofascists and hate merchants at The Family Foundations and strives to send a worldwide message that Virginia is welcoming to only right wing extremists and modern day Pharisees.  Today's event underscored that the Virginia GOP is going to find itself resoundingly on the wrong side of history and, if we are lucky, politically irrelevant.  

GOP Del. Scott Taylor and Democrat Sen. Lynnwood Lewis

Congressman Bobby Scott

Lt. Governor Ralph Northam