Love, Salvation and Community at the Pride Parade
By Daniel Rivera, Reporter
On Aug. 6, Long Beach held its 40th Annual Pride Parade at Shoreline and Alamitos just outside the Villa Riviera Condo complex. The parade path started near the Long Beach Museum of Art and traveled eastbound along Ocean Boulevard before turning right and ending at Alamitos and First Street. The parade went on for a few hours, with the various sponsors and stakeholder organizations also involved in the march. For many, this wasn’t their first pride march.
Rev. Scott Andrews, the lead pastor for the California Heights High Methodist Church, was one of those. He participated in the march as part of the four-member organization, Being the Church, which had a contingent.
“I believe in the part of the bible that says, ‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,’” Andrews told RLn, referencing Galatians 3:28 in the Bible.
But for others, this was their first Long Beach pride ever, like Grae Farley, who recently moved to the area along the parade path.
Farley recounted growing up in a conservative community and how she found acceptance in Long Beach’s LGBTQ community.
“It’s amazing. It’s super inclusive, I keep almost wanting to cry at times, it is just so nice, and everyone is so loving,” she said.
During the parade, the various organizations showed off their creativity with decorated vehicles, bubble machines, stilts, and colorful and expressional dresses that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are known for. The Sisters are a drag activist group that has been around for as long as the parade itself.
“Drag is an art form and an expression of someone’s internal beauty… it’s just another art form that we use to celebrate our community and have fun.” “We’re here to support our community and take care of them when they need help,” said Sister Tootie Toot.
Not only was beauty on display but so was a diverse showing of interests with creative takes on solidarity, like the Los Angeles Ghostbusters, a local activist and cosplay group in Los Angeles.
“Why not the Ghostbusters,” Ghostbuster Mike Zunic told RLn when asked why they chose to cosplay the Ghostbusters. “The LA Ghostbusters don’t do just ghostbusting activities and stuff like that. We also try to bring awareness to different activities to our community and to disenfranchise people in our community.”
He explained that their activist group has a lot of LGBTQ+ people, it’s one of their favorite communities, and that the aim of their outreach is so that community members feel supported and accepted. All the gadgets and gear are assembled by hand at home from all manner of materials, complete with a Ghostbusting Ectomobile made from a Toyota FJ Cruiser they drove in the parade.
To the community, the parade is a reminder that their members are heard and seen during what looks like a downward spiral as the Supreme Court of the United States attacks civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ people. The parade is both a statement of solidarity and resolve.
“It is safer than it used to be. It’s improving but there is a lot more work to do and I think we are going backward right now,” said California State University, Long Beach faculty member Sarah Dosher.
“Terrified … Terrified, but hopeful because look at all of us. I don’t want to live in a world where this is not available to everyone. I love this,” said Cindy Bryne, president of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, or PFLAG, an organization that focuses on counseling families to be better advocates for their queer children.
And like her and many others, the changing political winds change nothing about who they are and what they stand for.
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