Letters To The Editor
As a member of Charlotte’s gay community, I feel the need to
ask why you felt it your obligation to give Flip Benham and his associates
the joy of reading your article about Charlotte Pride in trouble?
While I do agree that the article is newsworthy to the point that
it emphasizes the lack of support from the gay community to the Pride
celebration, your interviews confirm that the goals of Operation
Save America (OSA) were achieved. I attended the festival and heard
the protestors, but I also ignored them. I think that when people
start to protest what you are doing or who you are, it shows that
you are worthy of their attention because it confirms they are losing
control over the way they wish society to be.
This article was placed one edition after the article about coming
out and being who you are — which included your own story of
coming out. Now comes this article about what those who come out
have to look forward to and how those proud leaders in our gay community
felt harassed during a festival to celebrate who we are. Those brief
comments about how they were harassed are enough to scare anyone
back in the closet.
OSA has been fighting with the city to get the Pride celebration
out of the public eye for the past few years. With the mayor on their
side, publicly saying that we need to have our celebration at a hotel
causes us to lose more ground. The primary concern of Charlotte Pride
should be how they are going to make future festivals great and continue
to show our pride despite the harassment of others. People constantly
blame the past leaders of Charlotte Pride for the downfall, but I
ask those who are so quick to judge to ask themselves, what have
they done? Decisions are made by those who show up. If you want to
change something, get involved.
Perhaps the answer for Charlotte Pride’s future is to turn
it over to the Charlotte Gay and Lesbian Center. Does this mean that
we will have our celebration within the safety of The Center walls?
Does this mean that the presence of the gay community in Charlotte
will move to that small part of Central Avenue? I am curious to see.
It looks like the theme of this past year’s festival, “We
Can” did make sense, just in a negative way: “We can” let
protestors bother us enough to not want to come out and show our
pride. — Chris J., via emai
Response: Q-Notes is a newspaper that reports stories effecting the
LGBT community in the Carolinas. Some of those stories are good news,
while others may be disturbing. The story you take question with
addressed the problems faced by Charlotte Pride — from those
who put the event together, to those who attended — and the
future of the event. Perhaps because of lack of experience or lack
of community connections, the individuals who have worked to keep
Charlotte’s Pride together have faced a myriad of challenges.
I am extremely sympathetic to that. However, I am also aware that
the organizers were informed that it was possible to circumvent OSA
and conceivably prevent them from obtaining the loudspeaker permit
which made Charlotte Pride so unbearable. Why didn’t that happen?
It seems rather unlikely to me that efforts by OSA and Charlotte’s
Mayor Pat McCrory will send any of Charlotte’s gay and lesbian
community rushing back to the smothering confines of the closet.
It is extremely important, however, that our community be aware of
what we have to face from anti-gay elements — so that we’re
sufficiently prepared to fight for our rights. — David Moore,
Editor, Q-Notes.
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