One 'amazing' day
City's first gay pride event, though it drew a
half-dozen protesters, was a mix of music, family, funnel cake and drag queens.
Sunday
News
Published: Jun 22, 2008
00:13 EST
By SUZANNE CASSIDY, Staff
To people in
|
Lee Flowers, from left,
Tammi Hessen and Leigh Wisotzkey drum at Lancaster Pride 2008 held Saturday
at Jack Leonard, Sunday News |
Michael Marcavage,
center, protests at Lancaster Pride. Jack Leonard, Sunday
News |
But to folks here,
Lancaster Pride 2008 -
According to Anthony Lascoskie Jr., one of Lancaster Pride's organizers, some
2,600 paper bracelets, proof of admission, were handed out to festival-goers,
vendors and volunteers.
Under picture-perfect, sunny skies, Lancaster Pride had all of the usual
elements of a midsummer's festival in
Amid the face-painting for kids, and the G-rated musical entertainment, there
were drag shows. But Lancaster Pride was meant to be a family-friendly event,
and so the drag queens had been told to be on their best behavior, Lascoskie
said.
Miss Lancaster Gay Pride '08, Whitley Nycole DeAire, posed for photos on a
gigantic rainbow flag. Wearing a glittering white dress and a sky-scraping
rhinestone crown, the queen quipped that her makeup was surviving the heat
because it had been applied with "an airbrush and a staple gun."
Lancaster Police Chief Keith Sadler said there were no notable problems, or
arrests, at the festival. A lot of planning had taken place, on the part of
city officials and the event's organizers, to ensure that things went well, he
said.
About two dozen city and state police officers kept watch over
Numbering a scant half-dozen, the Repent America protesters were joined by a
handful of others from a
Michael Marcavage, director of Repent America, said his group had come to warn
festival-goers of "the judgment that is to come." Marcavage, who
bears a passing resemblance to former Sen. Rick Santorum, said he's also been
told he looks like televangelist Joel Osteen.
He had another thing in common with Osteen on Saturday: He, and his fellow
protesters, were being videotaped.
They were being filmed by volunteers with Silent Witness PA, an organization
that seeks to provide a non-confrontational buffer between anti-gay protesters,
and those attending gay pride events.
Holding - and in a few cases, twirling - huge, rainbow-hued umbrellas, and
wearing neon-orange vests, the Silent Witness volunteers lined the sidewalk of
Some 40 Silent Witness volunteers worked in shifts. At least half were
first-time volunteers, mostly drawn from local churches, including Grace United
Church of Christ, Vision of Hope Metropolitan Community Church in Mountville,
and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lancaster.
Blaise Liffick, director of operations for Silent Witness PA, said the
volunteers were trained to not engage the protesters. Their aim was to keep
festival-goers from feeling intimidated by the protesters, he said. And Silent
Witness umbrellas not only provided a colorful physical barrier they
"make people happy," Liffick said.
Lascoskie said he and his fellow organizers felt somewhat saddened by the
lengths to which they had to go to protect festival-goers from anti-gay
protesters. But they decided, he said, "we'd rather be safe than
sorry."
Knowing that the protesters wouldn't pay to get into a gay-pride event, they
instituted a $5 admission fee. They set up the festival venue in the heart of
the park, where it was beyond the sight and earshot of the protesters, and they
cordoned the site off with an orange-netting fence.
Their strategies worked, in the view of those who attended the festival, who
praised it for its organization and happy atmosphere.
"It's wonderful to see a community come together peacefully," said
Joe Anders, of
Erin Givens, a city resident, was there with her son, 4-year-old Oliver, and
other family members, including her partner and their two dogs. "We're a
different sort of family and we like it that way," Givens said.
She said she wanted her son to see the diversity of those who were at the
festival. "It's not just the stereotypes," she said. "It's
really just families and people wanting to be together."
Oliver, whose face was painted green to look like a monster, said his favorite
part of the day was "when I got my face painted."
A 16-year-old
"It shows a level of progressiveness in a really conservative
society," he said, adding, "It's so great to see how many other
people in this community who are like me. It's so cool."
Ruth Fisher, a Hempfield school administrator who was filling in for the
faculty adviser of the Gay/Straight Alliance, said, "I have lived in
The event was a momentous one, she said, particularly for gay teens, who needed "a sense of identity and belonging."
Suzanne Cassidy is a staff writer for the Sunday News. Her e-mail address is
scassidy@lnpnews.com.