Gay Place

PRIDE PUNT Remember a few weeks back when we excitedly reported that Equality Texas, the entity which has organized the Austin Pride Festival for as long as anyone can remember, announced this summer that it was handing the festival torch to the freshly formed Pride Coalition, a group composed of representatives from local LGBT groups? Well, it seems our excitement was a bit premature. They seemed like great ideas: 1) Free up the busy lobbying group to do important things like kick ass in the Texas Lege, and 2) encourage a diverse group of local queers to sit at the table together to focus on one collaborative goal. To present the Austin LGBT community in all its stripes, with input from the entire community. To put the people's celebration back in the hands of the people, as it were.

As I said, premature. Last week, AGLCC released a statement saying, "Equality Texas has officially turned the [Austin Pride] Festival over to its fellow members in the Pride Coalition, which have decided to turn the task of organizing 2009's Festival over to the AGLCC ... with adding the Festival to its program, that means the AGLCC will pretty much 'own' Pride in Austin."

AGLCC is going to "own" Pride in Austin?

Is it really in the interest of our community to relegate an undertaking like Pride, which purportedly represents all of us, to one small organization?

Personally, I think this is a very, very bad idea. And we may never get an answer to the simple question: What does this purported Pride Coalition actually do?