Q-Seattle Events: Tacky Tourist Clubs

A couple of significant Pride Week news bits have come along while your webwrangler was off doing other things.

SOAP fundraiser
SOAP, the producers of the downtown parade, will hold a Halloween-night fundraiser called Pajama Party at the W Hotel [get directions] on October 31 from 7pm until midnight. Suggested donation at the door is $15. Proceeds benefit SOAP and the BRA Show for Breast Cancer Awareness.

The party will include a no-host bar, complementary appetizers, music for dancing, and an informal fashion event for men and women that will include the W Hotel's own loungewear line as well as bra's from Seattle's own BRA Show, and bras designed by Seattle local designers including Le Mare, Jessica Lovelace, Zombie Hearts, Cintli, and Lisa Doran.

And there's likely to be fascinating fashion from the crowd because a prize will be awarded to the attendee sporting the most creative PJs.

SOAP seeks Pride Parade theme suggestions
The official theme of the 2007 SOAP parade was -- somewhat wistfully -- "Come Together". They're now seeking suggestions from folks in the community about what their parade theme should be for 2008. Deadline for suggestions is January 1. The person submitting the theme chosen by SOAP's board will win a one-night stay at Seattle's Hotel Monaco.

Email your suggestions to info[at]seattlepride.or snail-mail them to 1605 12th Ave, Suite 2, Seattle WA 98122, Attn: Theme 2008. Include name, mailing address, and phone number with your suggestion.

SOAP seeks board members
SOAP is looking for board members to help guide the organization. Send an email to the same address if you think you have what it takes to perform what's often a thankless job. And, hey, you might be able to help choose the theme that way. But this is not for the feint of heart. Applicants should be willing to work tirelessly on next year's downtown parade and be willing to suffer criticism from some among us who might not SOAP's mission an entirely admirable one.

New non-profit for Seattle Center Pride festival
Egan Orion of OneDegree Events last year pulled on one of the most remarkable feats of event production ever seen when he and his staff pulled together a major Pride Sunday festival at Seattle Center, after others had proved incapable of meeting that considerable challenge.

Although there are few details yet, Orion announced in an email to the OneDegree mailing list that a 501(c)3 [i.e. tax exempt] non-profit will be formed to oversee future iterations of the festival. He promises more details real soon now.

Labels: fundraisers, gay pride, Gay Seattle, org:SOAP, Seattle Pride

The multi-night 'Rapture' parties that had been scheduled for Vancouver's long Pride Weekend have been cancelled by their promoter, TBB Productions. But it remains a major party weekend nonetheless.

Vancouver's daily, the Sun, offers this brief guide. The Pride Society has a more complete calendar of official events. The parade is Sunday followed by a festival at Sunset Beach.

The three parties produced by BNO Productions -- Nocturnal on Friday night, Freedom Sunday night, and Re-Charge Monday from 7 am until 2 pm -- will take up much of the slack, although the producers website says only limited quantities of individual tickets are available for Nocturnal and Re-Charge. Seattle DJ Brian Gorr is the opening act at Nocturnal from 10 pm until midnight. DJ Tony Moran spins through the night until 7 am.

It's a three-day holiday weekend in Canada, so there's a wealth of activities for all three days.

Brian Gorr will also spin for Cabana Daze on Saturday, a pool party that benefits Loving Spoonful, Vancouver's HIV/AIDS service group that provides meals and food (similar to Lifelong's Chicken Soup Brigade here). It's at the Pacific Palisades Hotel, 1277 Robson -- "rain or shine." Online tickets are available -- $25.

There are a few cruises on Saturday and Sunday to choose from (although, really, now... if you're looking for a real cruise party... Just sayin')

Cream is a Sunday night party at Richards at 1036 Richards (which becomes, of course, "Dicks on Dicks), that goes on until 3am.

And, of course, way more...

Labels: Gay events, gay party, gay pride

Seattle Black Pride holds its summer festival and party starting next Thursday, July 19, with a singles mixer and after-work happy hour and live jazz band. The partying starts later that night with the Grown & Sexy Old Skool Funk Dance & VIP Party at Faire Gallery/Cafe, 1351 E. Olive Way [get directions] featuring DJ Kun Luv playing "Old Skool Funk / R&B." This one is for those age 30 and over. Tickets are $15.

The weekend marks its formal kickoff with a night of entertainment on Friday, July 20, from 8 to 10:30 pm at Langston Hughes Cultural Arts Center [get directions]. D.C.'s own Xavier Bloomingdale serves as host for the evening of drag performances, live entertainment, and a fashion show. SBP promises a mystery "celebrity guest" for the evening. Tickets are $15.

The festival's big party is Saturday, July 21 from 9pm to 3am at Prince Hall Masonic Temple, 306 24th Ave S [get directions]. The party with the oh-so-appropriate title This is Why We're Hot! has two rooms in the venue, each with a unique "flava" featuring "House & Hip-Hop/R&B." [And, geez, your WebWrangler feels so old and white when trying to transcribe some of this. Apologies.] You'll be able to enjoy the eye-candy of male and female go-go dancers plus a special guest. Tickets are $20.

The busy weekend winds down on Sunday afternoon from 2pm to 7pm with a Family BBQ in the Park at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill, 1635 11th Avenue [get directions]. The family friendly afternoon offers free food, live entertainment, African drumming and music. (Free admission.)

But the festival is about more than the parties. Serious topics will be tackled at a panel discussion and series of workshops on Saturday at Langston Hughes Center. A town-hall meeting and panel starting at 11 am will discuss dual identities among Black LGBT people as panelists and audience consider the question, "Can Black = Gay?"

A series of workshops begin at 1 pm to consider several issues including, "Handle Yo' Business: LGBT Legal Affairs & Domestic Partnerships", "Money Matters for People of Color: Investing, Saving and Stacking your Money", "Sexual Healing": Women's Sexual Health", "Let's Get it On: Men's Sexual Health".

Admission to the Saturday panel and workshops is free.

Online tickets are not yet available through the SBP website, but tickets will be available at the door.

Labels: gay organization, gay party, gay pride, Gay Seattle, Seattle

The Pride Foundation grants thousands of dollars each year to dozens of organizations in the Pacific Northwest -- Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. This year's fund will distribute about $65,000 to organizations in the the five states. Grants from the group normally require an grant application (a complex process for many groups) and evalution process.

The standard process for the 2007/08 grant cycle will continue. Grant applications will be screened, as always, and approved by knowledgeable community volunteers.

But the Foundation has also come up with some additional money that will be distributed in a streamlined process this year for a few lucky groups. They're now taking nominations for a unique raffle that allows anyone to designate a favorite 501(c)3 non-profit for special grants. The Foundation is now accepting web-based nominations for a raffle it will hold on September 14, 2007.

It will give a total of $7500 through the raffle, including $2500 to a group drawn randomly from nominees along with $1000 to each of five groups nominated most often from each of the five states. (And that, of course, is a huge advantage to groups in Montana, Idaho, and Alaska -- something that strikes your Montana-native WebWrangler as entirely fair.)

You can nominate any registered non-profit, tax-exempt group that does not discriminate. And here's where it gets a bit complicated:

The Pride Foundation believes it is appropriate for an organization to provide programs and services to a specific population when the targeted groups require specialized programs to meet specific needs not shared by the general population. Organizations funded by the Pride Foundation may target their programs and services, but may not discriminate in regard to race, color, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, political ideology, age, creed, religion, heritage, ancestry, national origin, or sensory, mental, or physical ability. The selected agency will be required to sign a statement affirming compliance with this policy.

Pride Foundation will also hold a couple of events this weekend to mark its standard granting cycle.

The Foundation's Pierce County regional group holds its first annual Pierce County LGBTQA Community Awards Friday from 6 to 9pm at the Rainbow Center, 741 St. Helens Ave. in Tacoma [get directions].

In Bellingham, the Whatcom/Skagit regional group will hold a Recognition Buffet for the area's 2007 grant and scholarship recipients. The buffet starts at 11am at the Bellingham Co-op Connection Building, 1200 N. Forest St [get directions]. The buffet is one of the opening events for this year's Pride celebration in Bellingham. The celebration includes a Saturday picnic and a Sunday parade starting at 11am at Bellingham High along with several events at Rumors Cabaret.

[Update: 'graph two changed to better reflect (hopefully) the unique nature of the prizes in the raffle. The raffle distributes additional monies, outside of the regular granting process.]

[WebWrangler's note: Our slow summer posting rate continues, as regular readers might have noted. We'll try to catch up today and tomorrow with a few of the many items we've missed recently. But the best way to shame us into posting about your event or a news item that you think deserves a mention is to send us an email. We find those hard to ignore. Another way is to add us (webwranger@ttca.org) to an email list if we haven't found it already. (Bots should not apply since we have a very aggressive spam filter on that address.)]

Labels: fundraisers, gay organization, gay pride

Just to catch up on what other folks were saying before and after the Pride week festivities...

The lede of the PI story by Keri Murakami on yesterday's parade focused on a Japanese tourist who unexpectedly got caught up in the big crowds:

But in the Seattle Pride Parade's second year downtown, there were those, like Yui Igarashi, who planned to spend the day shopping, but instead ran into parade crowds.

She was at the corner of Fourth and Pine holding her digital camera up, trying to shoot over the two tall men in front of her.

Retreating to change memory cards on her camera, she said, "It's very live."

Igarashi, who is visiting from Japan, had never seen a gay pride parade in her home country. "It's very open," she said, as peacock feathers from the headdresses of a few men in the parade peeked over the crowd.

The Times story by Marsha King called the parade "dazzling celebration of Seattle's gay and lesbian culture."

In advance of the weekend, the PI ran a couple of stories about Seattle's gay history, including a remarkable column by the paper's cranky columnist, Joel Connelly. He recounts his return from a trip in 1978 to find a headline that would often be repeated in the years to come.

A headline across the top of the Seattle P-I front page carried big news: Seattle had just become the first town in America to vote AGAINST a bid to repeal its city ordinance prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Anita Bryant and her ilk were turned back by a civic campaign, chaired by Mayor Charley Royer's then-wife Rosanne, arguing the right to privacy.

The remarkable vote, in what was then called the Queen City, was driven home as I dragged my duffel bag through customs in San Francisco. Supervisor Dianne Feinstein was on TV announcing that Mayor George Moscone and gay fellow supervisor Harvey Milk had been murdered.

The 1978 campaign that defeated the anti-gay initiative was probably unknown to most who celebrated here the anniversary of the Stonewall protests in New York, but it was Seattle's own Stonewall.

Connelly does a great job of tracing the political and social tolerance in the city that was both given its birth by that initiative fight and reflected in the outcome.

PI reporter Keri Murakami traces the history of the Double Header, the Seattle bar that was in many ways like New York's Stonewall except that its customers never attracted the kind of raid that would lead to the Stonewall protests.

Seattle University professor Gary Atkins wrote in a 2003 history of gays in Seattle, "For the next three decades, one gay man or woman after another would find that all-important staircase on Washington Street, go down into the underground, and begin the process of both coming out and finding a new family."

And gradually, the scene moved upstairs to the Double Header.

Rose Bohanan, who is quoted in Atkins' book, recalled that she hadn't been to the Double Header for years. Now 66, she said she was a teenage runaway when she came across the Double Header in the '50s.

"For a 17-year-old, it was heaven on Earth. Finally finding people like me, and finding out I wasn't the only one," she said in an interview. "I was a street child, and the drag queens took me in. They taught me how to behave, not to be a fool."

There were fights in the bar, she said, because sailors would come in to harass the drag queens, but, she said, "There's nothing like an angry drag queen. I've seen some sailors dragged out with a high heel embedded in them."

That was a long time ago, but friend-of-The-Stranger and YouTube star Chris Crocker sent Seattle a greeting to remind us that it's not so different than what folks elsewhere deal with today.

Another such reminder from the experience of Seattle Men's Chorus who tried to do edgy posters for their annual Pride Week concert over the weekend. But edgey turned out to be offensive to several merchants who demanded that the Chorus censor its poster promoting the concert.

The promotional material for this weekend's concert at McCaw Hall, for example, features two protesters hoisting picket signs that proclaim: "God hates fags" and "You're going to hell."

Coleman's intent was one of humor, a spoof of the very religion with which many gays struggle and to which so many have found a closed door. He titled the performance "Scared Faithless: God and Gays in the 21st Century." ...

"I probably made a mistake," Coleman admitted Thursday. "I guess I was naive and just didn't realize that people would be that uncomfortable with that image and those words. After all, we live with this all the time."

The concert will explore ? through song and performance ? the pain some members have faced in seeking acceptance in their church. But it will also celebrate the warm welcome gays have felt in other communities of faith.

While many of their songs are religious, the Seattle Men's Chorus is secular, its mostly gay members hailing from many different faiths ? or none at all.

And in other censorship news, a school administrator in New Jersey apologized after his staff was ordered to black out an image of two men kissing that was included in the school's yearbook.

And congradulations to Randy, Mark, Scott and the big crew who've worked so hard to create Butch the big, pink, gay poodle mascot of the LVHS Classless Reunion. Butch won the second-place prize offered by The Stranger for entries in the Sunday parade. (And congrats to The Stranger judges for not holding grudges. [This is a point where we're glad that they ignore this blog.]) Congratulations as well to Nothwest Bears for thier grand-prize entry, "Bears, Bath & Beyond" [Times photo].

Labels: gay news, gay pride, Gay Seattle, history, Seattle, Seattle Pride

We've mentioned a couple of other art exhibits that open this month, but one that looks to us like it belongs at the top of any intinerary is Queer Eyes 3, a photography exhibit that opens June 10 at Art/Not Terminal gallery at 2045 Westlake Ave [get directions].

A group of 12 notable local photographers will be showing their work at the in the "Subterranean Room" of the gallery. The exhibit runs through July 3 and features a special "Pride Reception" on Saturday, June 23 from 7 to 10 pm.

The third annual exhibition of photographs by members of Image Collective, a group of amateur and professional gay male photographers from the Seattle area. More than just a way to spotlight the work of the individual artists, the show is a celebration of people, places and perspectives as seen, collectively, "through queer eyes".

The works of the twelve participating artists, which range from the blatantly erotic to the esoteric, will be shown together for one month only in a unique blending of personal styles and subject matter.

We offer here just a hint of what you'll see with two stunning images by Andrew Caldwell. (Who, by the way, shot the still popular publicity stills for last year's Queen City Cruise.)

Several more examples from the other photographers can be seen on the bio page of the exhibit website which includes links to the websites of several of the photographers.

Update: Because the model, unfortunately, had second thoughts about displaying the wonderful images, we had to remove a couple of the example shots from this post. Don't worry though -- there's still plenty of wonderful images to see in the show.

Labels: gay pride, Gay Seattle, photos, Seattle, shirtless hunk

With a huge police presence protecting them from counter-demonstrators, LGBTQ folk and their supporters celebrated Gay Pride in Riga, Latvia with a march through a city park.

UK Gay News reports

Around 1,200 people marched around the Vermanes Gardens at lunchtime as Riga staged, after two previous attempts, its Gay Pride.

But it was not like most Prides around the world. Today was more of a walk around the park with tight security. The main thing, as everyone agreed, was that it happened and it was peaceful.

As often happens with these things, the reported numbers of participants varies widely. AP counts a significantly lower number:

The gay rights activists, numbering about 400, paraded around a fenced-in park in downtown Riga on a sunny day, while a crowd of some 100 protesters shouted homophobic taunts from surrounding streets.

But whatever the number, the peaceful nature of the demonstration was a first for Eastern Europe. A participant from Belarus told UK Gay News

"While I had the feeling that we were in a zoo, it was better than nothing," he said. "I hope that today will have a lot of media coverage in Latvia to show people that such an event can be staged peacefully.

"The police were fantastic and everyone worked so hard to make the event go without problems.

Unlike previous years when they were accused of standing and watching violence, Riga police were out in force this year to keep anti-gay demonstrators away from Pride celebrants. UK Gay News photo

"Most of the people watching the parade through the railings were supportive," he felt. "Many were waiving at us."

Officials from several fellow European Union countries travelled to Latvia to take part in the celebration.

Volker Beck, the member of the German Bundestag who was in Moscow last weekend for the city's troubled Gay Pride, declared to participants that "this is the first real gay parade in Riga."

"A wonderful day -- the fist legal Pride n Riga," he told an enthusiastic audience. "May there be many more." [#]

Despite earlier rumors that American homophobes like local preacher/activist Ken Hutcherson and his Oregon brother-in-bigotry Scott Lively might have attended, it's not clear yet whether either of them were in the groups that were kept far from the Pride celebrants.

Update: User 'lettlander' offers this great YouTube video with views from both sides of the fence.

Labels: gay pride, ken hutcherson, latvia

Seattle Out & Proud, Inc. (SOAP) has announced the names of the folks who will now have to fulfill that odd parade tradition of sitting on the trunk of a convertible with their feet on the back seat while smiling and waving ("figure-eight, figure-eight") at the crowd waiting for something interesting to come by. SOAP, of course, is sponsoring the downtown Pride parade on Sunday, June 24.

Dennis Coleman, artistic director of Seattle Men's Chorus, is the male grand marshal for the parade. Kiantha Duncan-Woods, president of Seattle Black Pride, is the female grand marshal. Although SOAP might not use the long parade name anymore, they have shown themselves willing to appeal to many segments by appointing even a group grand marshal. Gay Fathers Association of Seattle will fill that role, but we're not sure how that will work out with the traditional convertible.

And since there might be more car dealerships that would be interested in slapping their business name on the side of a wave-mobile, SOAP has invited some "celebrity" wavers to join the Fourth Avenue procession.

• Jane Abbott Lighty and Pete-e Petersen met over 30 years ago in Sacramento, California. They?ve been in a committed relationship ever since, and were married in Seattle First Baptist Church in October, 2005. Since their retirement from careers in nursing, Pete-e and Jane have devoted their time to several community endeavors, including the Seattle Women?s Chorus and their heart warming appearance in the film Inlaws & Outlaws.
• Chuck Lazenby was born and raised in Seattle, the youngest of five children. Chuck ran away from home at the age of 16. Within a few years he met his partner David Asplund. They lived together for fifty years to the week before David died in 1999. Through the support of his UCC church, Chuck then came out and has been a volunteer for several organizations supporting the LGBT community. Chuck appeared in Drew Emery?s prior video project, The Bridge, before telling his story in Inlaws & Outlaws.

Mark "Mom" Finley will reprise his role as emcee of the parade from a stand near Westlake Park. We heard and saw him last year on the KSTW broadcast of the parade, and he made the thing almost bearable, and consistently funny.

Of course, SOAP is also asking you to pay for their many past mistakes. They have some sort of promo for those willing to hand over money to the group. Check their website.

Labels: gay pride, Gay Seattle, Seattle, Seattle Pride

According to UK Gay News, Redmond preacher Ken Hutcherson is expected to join Oregon anti-gay activist Scott Lively this weekend in Latvia as anti-gay protesters seek to distrupt gay pride observances in Riga, capitol of the Baltic republic of Latvia.

Scott Lively, the American author of The Pink Swastika, is reported to be already in Riga.

"He has asked if he can attend the conference on family models in Latvia and Europe," a spokesperson for Mozaika, the organisers of Riga Friendship Days and Gay Pride, said last night.

There are rumours here that the American preacher and former NFL linebacker Ken Hutcherson, who heads the Antioch Bible Church in Seattle, will also be in Riga this weekend.

Both Lively and Hutcherson were in Riga earlier this year following in invitation from the New Generation Church. It was on this visit that Hutcherson said that he was an "envoy of the White House," which was subsequently strongly denied by the White House.

After violence last weekend at a gay rights observance in Moscow, the situation in Riga is being watched closely by European human rights groups.

After banning the gay pride march for two years, Riga officials allowed it to go on this year. A regional court in Latvia ruled earlier this year that the city's refusal to grant a parade permit to the gay group Mozaika violated the law.

The anti-gay group that has invited Lively and Hutcherson to join them isn't so happy about seeing other foriegners in Riga this weekend.

Foreign guests, please don?t come to Latvia for Riga Friendship Days and Gay Pride. That is the message from the 'No Pride' group, who have not headed their own plea.

They say on their website: "Foreign Guests please don't come. It's our problem. Not yours!"

A high-ranking Swedish official said earlier that he would travel to Latvia for "Riga Friendship Days".

Tobias Billström, the minister for migration and asylum policy at the Ministry of Justice will be taking part in the parade at Vermanes Park in downtown Riga ? and is due to make a speech following the event. ...

"For us it is important that it is not only words, but also action," Jonas Hansson, president of the international affairs committee of RFSL ? the Swedish Federation For Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Rights ? told UK Gay News this morning.

He pointed out that the Minister of European Affairs was at last weekend?s Pride in Warsaw, where the Embassy also gave a reception.

"These are examples of how to show the Swedish government?s support to the LGBT work in these countries and a good start of what the politicians can do," he continued, adding that RFSL would continue to pressure government.

Update: The Guardian has a great summary, titled Crucible of Hate, of the fight for rights in Latvia and throughout Eastern Europe.

Latvia is typical among eastern European countries where, increasingly, being gay is seen as an act of political aggression. Rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are denied on vague grounds of "promoting homosexuality" or posing a risk to security. Homophobia has become a touchstone issue for politicians seeking to divert attention from economic frustration. Homosexuality may be decriminalised in these countries, but only on condition that it stays out of sight.

Labels: gay pride, ken hutcherson, latvia

For the fourth year, Seattle's LGBTQ Center [see map] will present a Portraits of Pride exhibit in its gallery space at the back of the Center on Pike Street. Cody Blomberg, curator of the show, asked artists this year to create self-portraits, a favorite theme of many artists. The show features work of Chris Rollins, Mike Curato, Cody Blomberg, loti, John Tozzi, Holly Senn, Thomas Wurst, Tennessee Loveless, Michael Strangeways, Matt Wencl, and others.

The exhibit opens on Friday, June 1 with an artists reception from 7 to 10pm in the gallery. The reception is open to the public. The Portraits of Pride exhibit runs through the month of June and can be viewed during regular Center hours (which are irregular and dependent on volunteer staffing and occupancy of the gallery for other scheduled events).

There will be even more queer-themed art to view as Dunshee House displays work of local artist Andrew Grant Stone. He will be hanging various collections reflecting on strength and courage of facing the unknown, as well as lighthearted and inspiring never-before-seen works from the artist's studio. Dunshee House is normally open from 3 pm until 9 pm weekdays.

Some of Andrew's work was seen in limited engagement at Glo's in May and a notable hanging in April at Rosebud Restaurant, but the Dunshee exhibit will be his largest and longest local showing. Works will be viewable throughout the summer.

Dunshee House, located at 303 17th Avenue East in Seattle [get directions], offers over 20 peer-facilitated groups each week includingboth HIV/AIDS-related and non-HIV/AIDS related groups, such as our growing program for gay/bisexual/queer men, lesbian/bisexual/queer women, transfolks, and LGBTQ folks inclusively.

Labels: Gay events, gay pride, Gay Seattle, Seattle, Seattle Pride

At a board meeting last night, Seattle Out & Proud (SOAP) decided to reverse a decision announced earlier in the day and to go ahead with the most controversial part of last year's Pride activities, a parade along 4th Avenue. According to the Times, SOAP will muddle ahead with their parade, after all.

It seems that their talk of working working with the community was just that -- talk. In a press release yesterday, SOAP president Eric Albert-Gauthier said, "We hope that whoever does step in can unite the community behind them and likewise lead with no alternative agenda. We look forward to supporting whichever group of people can step up."

Another group did step up. It was one informally (so far) allied with the LGBT Community and supported by several Capitol Hill businesses. They had started to make the last-minute plans to hold a parade on Broadway. But, apparently, SOAP has decided not to support it after all.

SOAP v.p. Weston Sprigg told the Times, "People look at it, and it was so fine-tuned, and last year it looked flawless." The parade last year was not flawless. It was as dreadfully produced as an event of that kind can be. There were plenty of mostly boring entries in the parade, but within four blocks of the parade's official starting point, those entries were spread out with at least a block between most of them for most of the afternoon.

There was one point -- about 3/4 of the way through the thing -- that I was able to stand in the middle of 4th at Blanchard and see to the South some balloons of the next entry just barely visible at Westlake Center. Turning to the north, I could just barely make out the previous entry which had gone on about eight or ten blocks. Blank concrete. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only opportunity presented for such a view.

This parade wasn't just a case of poor production values, there were no production values.

One thing I give SOAP credit for: They proved adept at spinning a false impression of the parade component of their event. Supporters of the group managed to flood message boards and blogs with comments claiming that everything -- even that miserable parade -- was a "great success." Most of the comments I saw at the time used almost exactly the same talking points, including the repetition of the phrase "great success."

Let's hope that this report in the Times is mistaken. A group that was starting to look during its death rattles like it had the broader community in mind has now shown itself to be petty and selfish. Pity.

Labels: gay pride, Gay Seattle, Seattle, Seattle Pride

Here in Seattle, the activists who claim to own the name "Seattle Pride" have proudly stated for years that they've grown up and moved beyond our town's gay neighborhoods. Seattle's annual gay pride parade was moved off of Broadway on Capitol Hill and now marches through a multi-decade construction zone on Fourth Avenue downtown, following roughly the same route in reverse as the town's wonderfully tacky Seafair Torchlight Parade.

Gay and lesbian activists and businesses in Philadelphia approached things with a different perspective, working for years to define and to claim for themselves an area that they could claim as their own "Gayborhood." The efforts culminated yesterday in the installation of official street signs bearing rainbow-flag colors. Philadelphia Daily News reports, New signs make it official: We have a gayborhood:

Welcome to the "Gayborhood."

A welcoming vibe is what organizers hope to inspire when visitors see new street signage that will designate a portion of the Center City District as the city's official gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender-sensitive neighborhood.

The official "Gayborhood" extends from 11th to Broad streets, and from Pine to Locust.

"This sends a message to the region, country and world that Philadelphia is very diverse," said Councilman Frank DiCicco during yesterday's unveiling at 13th and Locust. "This is a tribute to gay people and people who aren't that they have a willingness to live and work together."

Michael Hinson Jr., City Hall's liaison to the LGBT community, and Tami Sortman of the Philadelphia Gay Tourism Caucus, joined DiCicco for the announcement.

The new street signs will feature the traditional GLBT rainbow, or "Freedom" flag underneath the usual street signs.

The rainbow design was created by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker.

In all, 36 new signs have been installed in the community.

Four other North American cities officially designate LGBT-friendly neighborhoods: San Francisco, Chicago, Montreal and Toronto.

"The signage is an important symbol for this city," Sortman said. "The major thing is that we can use this in all of our marketing. We can say that we have a neighborhood."

The Philadelphia Gay Tourism Caucus estimates that the travel market for gay and lesbians is a staggering $54 billion. And Philadelphia, organizers say, should see a healthy share of that money, given the gay-friendly clubs, restaurants and other establishments dotting the newly designated district.

The street signs are just part of the efforts in Philadelphia to both serve the city's own LGBT populations and to attract tourist dollars to the city. For instance, the city recently funded a major study of LGBT demographics in the area. [Note: Link is to a current story in Philadelphia Gay News. Because of awkward design of the weekly's website, link will probably point to a different story after the weekend.]

"This is the first time a population-level study of homosexual and bisexual people has been conducted in Philadelphia," said Chris Bartlett, a project coordinator and head of the Gay Men's Health Leadership Academy of Philadelphia. "For the first time, we have a clearer picture of the size and some of the big characteristics of some of our diverse communities, and we are able to compare these homosexual and bisexual populations to their heterosexual counterparts."

Funded by the City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Foundation ? a philanthropic organization that allots funds to community groups ? the assessment was targeted toward the GLB community itself, the local and state government, local and regional foundations and businesses serving the community.

"Both the city and the Philadelphia Foundation wanted to make sure that they could appropriately target services and funding at GLBT populations throughout the city," said Bartlett. "They also wanted local, community-based organizations that serve the GLBT population to have access to these data for strategic planning and fundraising purposes. Data like these are very important because they help our GLBT populations to better understand ourselves. In addition, we can use these data to advocate for the needs of our communities. Looking at these available data sets allows the community to focus on getting answers to questions in other areas not covered by these data."

Activists there aren't ignoring LGBT populations in other parts of the area by giving focus to one neighborhood as more specifically gay, but in Seattle the activists who own the name "Seattle Pride" insisted that they needed to move the city's parade off of Capitol Hill because many LGBT folks live elsewhere in the region.

Philadelphia's recent "Gayborhood" designation is just one part of a long-running campaign by the city's gay businesses and its official tourism agency to promote the city as a destination for LGBT tourists and thereby invigorate the businesses that cater to both local and visiting

PHILADELPHIA, August 18, 2006 - As shown by its high-profile ad campaign, "Get Your History Straight and Your Nightlife Gay," and resulting coverage on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN and other national media, Philadelphia has officially "come out" as a gay-friendly travel destination. The region is the place to learn about what it means to be an American by day and a gay American by night. Here, you'll find all the ingredients for a fabulous weekend getaway: a hot restaurant scene, great shopping, lively bars, clubs and cafes and a nine-block "gayborhood," as well as rich cultural attractions and historic sites.

The city's official Pride organazion prominently promotes the "Gayborhood" campaign on its website. Several other cities with official outreach to LGBT tourists, including Dallas, promote a gay-friendly neighborhood as a draw to gay and lesbian visitors. Seattle's official tourism site includes a home-page link for "LGBT Travel." The LGBT Visitors page includes this outdated reference to Capitol Hill:

The Capitol Hill neighborhood is the traditional hub of gay and lesbian culture and entertainment and hosts the annual Gay Pride Festival. However, Seattle's sizeable, progressive gay and lesbian population pervades the entire city.

The page also includes this brief reference:

Just a few blocks east of downtown, Capitol Hill's Broadway Avenue East and the Pike/Pine corridor offer affordable couture, vintage collectibles, music and art stores and plenty of fun cafes and coffee shops to cleanse a shopper's palate.

As downtown-focused activist here often point out, several cities that have more defined gay neighborhoods than Seattle has, hold their Pride events elsewhere. But in our view (which isn't shared by the Seattle-Pride-supporting hosts of this blog), it's exactly because Broadway and Pike/Pine are less defined as "gayborhoods" that the parade should have stayed up on the hill, even while the festival moved to the better facilities of Seattle Center.

The parade on Broadway and part of Pike or Pine was a way of "marking" a neighborhood -- a useful thing not because we all live there, but because it helped us to difine a small area of this larger city as uniquely our own for all the other months when the floats and marchers were not on the streets.

It's unfortunate that we all allowed a small group of folks to take that away from us.

[Update:] Just to be sure about it, we asked Philly Pride, organizers of that city Pride parade, if they march through the gayborhood or feel the need to go elsewhere in the city. Fran replied, "Our parade kicks off in the gayborhood, parades around the gayborhood, passes the oldest gay establishment in the gayborhood.

"Did I mentioned, our OutFest event in.October, is how our local gay neighborhood got the name the GAYborhood."

Good for them. We don't know if LGBT folks who live elsewhere in Phlly and Bucks County feel dissed by that, but -- somehow -- we doubt it.

Labels: activism, gay pride, Gay Seattle, Seattle Pride, tourism

During his two recent visits to the Baltic republic of Latvia, Redmond's anti-gay activist pastor Ken Hutcherson called himself a "special envoy" from the White House Office of Faith Based Initiatives. The Stranger's Eli Sanders checked with the White House about the title. A spokesperson for the office told him that Hutcherson had no official sanction for his trip. Disputation ensues.

The White House has reason to be concerned about the title that the pastor has been using because Hutcherson's activities in Latvia have embroiled him in a confusing, dangerous, and potentially violent local and regional political firestorm in the Baltic republic.

We've been a bit mystified by this bizarre connection between that small republic on the Baltic and the local pastor. As we've mentioned before, a great Seattle Times story from January by reporter Janice I. Tu about Hutcherson's outreach to local Slavic emigrant churches seems to partly explain the local angle on his connections with Latvia. The Times' David Postman today points to the same article to explain the connection in his summary of the official-title flap.

The picture accompanying the January story shows Hutcherson with a group that includes Alexey Ledyaev, the pastor of New Generation Church in Riga which sponsored Hutcherson's November trip to Latvia. Unfortunately, the story doesn't explain how the connection between the two pastors was first made.

But, in keeping with the "WebWrangler" handle we use here, we wrangled through the web a bit and found a bit more to explain things.

Latvia's dangerous gay-rights/no-rights brew

Since at least 2005 when a group of activists staged a gay pride march in Riga, gay rights has become a hot-button issue in Latvia.

Although it was opposed by Latvia's prime minister, Aigars Kalvitis, activists staged a gay pride march in Riga in July 2005. Before the march, the Prime Minister said that Riga should "not promote things like that".

"For sexual minorities to parade in the very heart of Riga, next to the Doma church, is unacceptable," he told the country's television station before the march.

Despite the PM's misgivings, a few dozen people marched, according to the BBC.

[The] marchers were outnumbered by hundreds of protesters who blocked the narrow streets of the capital.

Police were forced to alter the march route and to form a chain around the parade participants to protect them.

The march had sparked outrage in Latvia and only went ahead after a court overturned a council ban on the event.

Officials said that six of the protesters had been detained for their part in disrupting the march.

Although march organizers had initially been given a permit in 2005 by Riga's city council, the council withdrew the permits "after receiving letters and e-mails from religious and extremist groups threatening to disrupt it." A court order restored the permits just prior to the march.

In 2006 a public march permit for gay pride activists was again denied because of threats of violence -- a denial that was upheld by the courts. Activists in Riga settled for a church service and hotel rally, but the events were once again greeted with violent anti-gay protesters.

This report on the 2006 events should be treated with some scepticism since it comes from a Russian source who is apparently quoting a London activist, Peter Tatchell, who tends to lace his statements with hyperbole. (Tatchell often comes across like a Larry Kramer with 'roid rage.)

Tatchell offers this first-hand account in a web commentary printed by The Guardian:

After the banning of the march, the Latvian gay rights movement, Mozaika, switched to holding an indoor rally in the prestigious Reval hotel, in the heart of downtown Riga. By opting for an indoor, private rally, Mozaika had hoped to cool the inflammatory atmosphere. But the homophobes were not satisfied.

The Reval was under siege all day on July 22 by about 250 protesters from the anti-gay No Pride movement - a menacing alliance of Christian fundamentalists, ultra-nationalists and neo-Nazis who represent a worrying revival of pro-fascist sympathies among sections of the Latvian population.

White T-shirted No Pride thugs roamed the streets outside the hotel searching for gays and lesbians to attack. Anyone who looked the tiniest bit unstraight was liable to abuse and assault, even innocent passing tourists. For much of the afternoon and evening, the police seemed to stand back and let the No Priders terrorise people with virtual impunity.

This is the dangerous brew into which Hutcherson inserts himself with his now-dicredited claim to be a White House Envoy.

Hutcherson inserts himself into the controversy

Riga has a new mayor this year. He expressed guarded support for a gay rights march in the capitol in July.

In an interview with Diena newspaper, Janis Birks said he was ashamed at events last year, when bags of human excrement were thrown at gay marchers.

The Mayor called for tolerance and understanding on all sides.

Last month London Pride announced they would be "twinning" with Riga Pride as a sign of solidarity.

"The problem is not in the march but sexual orientation," said Mr Birks.

"We need to have discussion within society. What happened on the side of sexual minorities and the other side, I think we need understanding from both sides."

Mr Birks said that if security could be provided, the march could go ahead.

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, welcomed his Latvian counterpart's comments, but urged Riga authorities to do more to protect gay people on the march.

"Security is something that is under the control of the authorities," said Mr Livingstone.

"It is their duty to ensure that demonstrators are able to exercise their right to peaceful protest.

"I urge Mr Birks to complete the stand he has taken and ensure a peaceful Gay Pride demonstration takes place in an appropriate central venue in the city."

Hutcherson's friends -- the anti-gay activists who welcomed the so-called "White House Envoy" to Riga -- reacted angrily to the statement issued by London's mayor. In a letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the anti-gay group "No Pride" called it "unacceptable that civil servants of the United Kingdom interfere with the Latvia's internal affairs."

The anti-gay group called on Livingstone and LGBT people "to respect the views of Latvian society and their right to self-determination and sovereignty."

No such call was made in November, 2006 when Hutcherson addressed a church gathering in Riga and criticized the country's president.

This report on Hutcherson's sermon comes from an awkwardly translated report posted on the web page of New Generation, the Pentacostal church that hosted the Redmond preacher:

"My duty in this country is to defend righteousness!" Hutcherson said, "When I heard about the drawings in Diena newspaper and the publications insulting New Generation Church, I realized I must come to Latvia and engage myself in this battle for righteousness.

"Scott and I wrote letters to the leaders of your government, state ministers and statesmen. I can read you the response from Vaira Vike-Freiberga."

Kenneth Hutcherson [quoted] the Latvian President's letter which [stated] that [the] constitution of a democratic state provides for the freedom of speech and allows Diena to express its opinions whether Christians like it or not.

She pointed out that the conflict was initiated mostly by the New Generation Church itself which is intolerant toward sexual diversity. ...

"I came to you representing the White House," continued Hutcherson. "In my country, people will know how Latvia responded to antichristian statements. We need to stand for righteousness not only morally, but also physically and financially. It's a great battle for righteousness and no one can stop it. I promise to stand with you."

Apparently they think it's OK for someone who claims to be "representing the White House" to "interfere with the Latvia's internal affairs."

Next post: History is politics in Latvia

Labels: gay pride, ken hutcherson, latvia, religion