I made it just in time to grab a good spot to take pictures of the parade and was quickly joined by fellow blogger Leah from Tyrant Queen of the Midgets. She hails from the Evansville area and is interning up here in Indy for the summer. It was Leah's first time at a pride festival/parade which made watching it with her even more fun. Speaking of bloggers, I also ran into Gary Welsh from Advance Indiana at his booth for his law practice.
I know the most frequent complaint I hear about bilerico.com is that the readers have no idea what some of our contributors look like and wouldn't be able to spot them out in public. I tried to take pictures of as many former and current contributors as I could find. Here's current contributors Bruce Parker and Candace Gingrich, guest columnist Stu Rosenburg and former contributors Annette Gross and Ed Fox (he's on the left). Apparently Alex and I just missed each other. (You can see from some of his photos that he was about two blocks from me during the parade route!) I also snapped frequent commentors Zach Adamson, Lori Morris, and David Wene.
This year's parade included several floats, but as far as politicians go I readily picked out these City-County Councilors: Republican Scott Keller and Democrats Jackie Nytes and Joanne Sanders. I kept dropping by Scott's booth and it was great to see so many community members stop by and wish him luck in his election this year. The entire LGBT community of Indianapolis owes Scott a great deal for his courageous leadership on the human rights ordinance. While his oppenent, Brian Mahern, was also at Pride touting how his family has a history of civil rights leadership, I think it's important to point out that Scott doesn't have to count what other members of his family have already done 40 years ago - Scott's doing it himself now - on our behalf. As I've said before, this will be the first time I've ever voted Republican, but I'll do so gladly.
It's amazing to me how much Indy Pride has grown under Gary Brackett's leadership - this year the parade route and festival were packed! [UPDATE: The Indy Star is reporting the size of the crowd at 30,000 this year.] I remember when four people and a cat would show up for the parade. I also remember that one year there was no Pride - just a small picnic some folks threw together for anyone that wanted to show up. We did. As with most Indiana LGBT organizations, Indy Pride has had some growing pains in it's past - but with Gary at the helm, they've left that behind and grown the event into something to be proud of.
You can click any of the photos (they display randomly) to go to the entire set. Between Alex and I, we snapped almost 80 photos of the day, so feel free to cruise around and check them out. See you at Pride next year!
If you took pics of your local Pride event, leave the link in the comments!
Share
Like what you read? Subscribe to The Bilerico Project by Email.
Want others to read it too? Use the buttons and links here to share this entry with others. (Move your cursor over a button or link to learn more about it.)
13 Comments
« "The only thing worse for these candidates than another terrorist attack would be a gay hero stopping it." | Home | Coffee & Toast with Ann Filemyr »
Great photo set, Bil. Good to see you yesterday.
Gary Welsh | June 10, 2007 2:11 PM
Reply to this comment
Thanks for taking the photos. I also wanted to add my thanks to Gary Bracken and all the volunteers that worked at Pride. The event has really improved in so many ways over the last few years. Improvement does not come by luck but through a lot of work and effort. Thank you Indy Pride!
David Wene | June 10, 2007 2:19 PM
Reply to this comment
Thanks Gary - you snapped some good ones too.
I thought it was funny how I had a picture of Lori, you had a pic of her and so did Scott. It must be hell to be so popular! *grins*
Bil Browning | June 10, 2007 2:20 PM
Reply to this comment
On a political note, some Republicans are starting to take more notice of our community. Hopefully in the long run this will mean better legislation as well.
Gov. Daniels sent a "Welcome Letter".
Scott Keller (City Councillor)-Booth, car in parade
Secretary of State, Todd Rokita, his office had a booth for voter registration, fraud, finance info.
Log Cabin Republican Booth:
Bruce Schumacher (City Council Candidate District 02) and Michael Hegg (City Council At-Large Candidate) stopped by in person for awhile!
Ron Elrod (State Rep) and Ryan Vaugh (City Council Candidate District 03) could not make it but provided signs and literature.
David Wene | June 10, 2007 2:49 PM
Reply to this comment
Was there any news coverage of the Pride day events?? Didn't see any on the news and can't find any on their web pages?
Phil | June 10, 2007 3:27 PM
Reply to this comment
After taking over 500 fotos yesterday, I culled them down to 193 - mostly of the Parade. I uploaded them to Flickr - try viewing them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8800251@N03/sets/72157600334790971/detail/
I've never done the Flickr thing before - let me know if you have trouble viewing the pixes please. They're in a set labeled "IndplsGayPride07"
Wilson46201 | June 10, 2007 4:34 PM
Reply to this comment
The Star story is at http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070610/LOCAL/706100460
Wilson46201 | June 10, 2007 4:36 PM
Reply to this comment
pretty funny!
lori | June 10, 2007 8:29 PM
Reply to this comment
Great pictures, Wilson! Makes up for the fact that I got almost none of the parade. Of course, I'm the only member of the Brian Mahern marchers NOT to make your pictures :-P. Hope everyone had as good a time as I did, regardless of political affiliation.
Morgan | June 10, 2007 11:48 PM
Reply to this comment
Phil - I didn't see the news that night, but other have said they covered it very briefly. I couldn't find stories on any of their sites either...
Morgan - Put your pics on Flickr or something and post a link to them so we can see too! :)
Great photos Wilson!
Bil Browning | June 11, 2007 10:28 AM
Reply to this comment
Sorry I missed it (after 2 years in the Parade/ at the festival, I had to be out of town this weekend, when we finally had nice weather)--great pics, Bil!
Hope you all said hello to the Planned Parenthood Peer Educators, who ran our booth all day. We're very proud of them!
Jen Jorczak | June 11, 2007 5:14 PM
Reply to this comment
This year's Pride was wonderful! PFLAG had a steady stream of visitors and we gave out a lot of literature! We also had approximately 100 people fill out postcards encouraging our legislators to vote for the Hate Crimes Bill.
Marching down Mass Avenue with my fellow PFLAG moms was an extraordinary experience! We all had tears in our eyes as the crowd thanked us for doing what we feel is only natural - loving and supporting our GLBT loved ones! All in all it was a glorious day!
Thanks for the great pix Bil!!!!!
Annette | June 11, 2007 10:38 PM
Reply to this comment
I sent the Indy Star a Letter to the Editor about the little attention Indy Pride received. I was disappointed that there wasn't more coverage.
Kris | June 12, 2007 3:20 PM
Reply to this comment