At least a thousand of people gathered for the annual Pride Parade, Sunday afternoon, here in Wichita. There were many colorful banners at this gay pride event where people stressed they should be what they want to be.
Tom Witt, executive director of Equality Kansas, asked the crowd who were outside the Old Sedgwick County Courthouse for speeches before the parade, if they remember Stonewall.
"They were riots." he said.
Stonewall was a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations between members of the gay community against a police raid which took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan New York. They are widely considered to constitute the most important event leading to the gay liberation movement.
He also brought up the passing of an adoption law this year that allows faith based outfits to be involved in adopting out children and they can discriminate against gay couples (SB 284, passed by a vote of 24-15).
"We really dropped the ball on that one," Witt said.
Other speakers that where present also brought up that law, including
Liz Hamor, of the Greater Wichita Chapter of GLSEN.
"I've known gay people who knew they were gay before they were cutting teach," she said.
In 2013, Liz started the Greater Wichita Chapter of GLSEN, a national organization that works to ensure all students feel safe, valued, and respected in K-12 schools regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression.
"Things were much different five years ago," said Democrat Kansas Representative John Carmichael.
"Gays couldn't inherit property, they couldn't get health insurance for their mates, they couldn't visit partners in the hospital," he added. “Things are not as good as they should be but things are better."
Carmichael also talked about the potential loss of women's rights if Brett Kavanaugh gets to be on the Supreme Court.
"It's wrong and we're going to change it," he said of the adoption law.
It was interesting to see that corporations are now putting their stamp of approval on gay rights, by putting floats in the parade. T-Mobile and Airbus had floats (see the last two pictures). Does it help the cause that corporations are trying to capitalize on the success of gay liberation? It is hard to tell if such a connection is helping the cause or if the corporations are just helping themselves.
Here is a float from Moms Demanding Action from gun violence.
As we can see in the background some local politicians used the event to support their election campaigns.
-And below we see corporate logos.
No comments:
Post a Comment