With nearly 80,000 people in attendance, the Seventh Annual St. Pete Pride Promenade and Street Festival was easily the biggest in the history of the state’s largest LGBT annual Pride celebration.
According to the St. Petersburg Police, the estimated number of people was determined by using a formula of people per block in conjunction with aerial photos. The event exceeded last year’s estimate of 70,000-75,000.
The continuing success of St. Pete Pride is comforting, given that LGBT Pride organizations around the area and the country are struggling in the difficult economy.
“One of the reasons I think that St. Pete Pride has stayed successful is because we stay focused and keep things simple,” says St. Pete Pride co-chair Jeff Klein. “It’s a huge event on what is usually the hottest day of the year, but we always keep it as a simple street festival. We keep local entertainers on our stages and we make it about the local community. That’s what has kept everyone responding to it so well.”
Fortunately, temperatures remained cooler this year thanks to overcast skies. Only a little bit of rain fell, which most festival-goers appreciated.
This year’s promenade featured more than 100 entrants ranging from lavish, expensive floats to lesbians on motorcycles and long-term couples marching with signs declaring their longevity. The diversity within the parade was heartening to Gerry Hartford, who was attending the festival with her partner of 22 years.
“Never would we have imagined that so much acceptance would be available to us in one place,” Hartford said during the promenade. “I know we have a long way to go [for total equality] but we’ve come such a long way.”
The June 27 St. Pete Pride festival was one day before the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots of New York City. In 1969, the LGBT community fought back against discriminatory raids on the Stonewall Inn by local law enforcement. At St. Pete Pride, St. Petersburg police officers were silently watching the festivities and focusing mainly on the regular gathering of protestors that spoke out against the festival.
“It’s funny, I think the protestors have accidentally become a part of Pride rather than detractors from it,” Jamie Fernandez laughed while watching some fellow festival-goers interact with the anti-gay contingent. “I’m happy to see they have a few new signs this year. It means that despite this economy, they can find new and colorful ways to spread their hate.”
Despite bullhorns declaring the sins of homosexuality and signs reading “God Abhors You,” and other insulting phrases designed to upset LGBTs, there were no arrests made at St. Pete Pride this year.
“There weren’t even any incidents worth mentioning,” Klein says about the protestors. “I think that says a lot about our community.”
Protestors with signs larger than the width of their body and bullhorns were regulated to “free speech zones” along Central Avenue. It’s a tactic the city implemented two years ago to prevent protestors from interfering with festivities.
A political feel
On the heels of 2009 St. Pete Pride Grand Marshal and Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin Beckner were several LGBT-supportive political candidates. 
Scott Wagman, Jamie Bennett and Kathleen Ford, all candidates for St. Petersburg mayor, were on hand as was Steve Kornell, an openly gay candidate for St. Petersburgs City Council. The sight of elected officials and candidates supporting LGBT Pride was very impressive to Kathi Marksdale, who had never attended a LGBT Pride event before this year’s St. Pete Pride festival.
“That is just so cool,” Marksdale said after the parade. “I come from a very rural area in Mississippi and I can’t think of any elected officials in my hometown who would publicly say that they support me as a lesbian. I’m just amazed.”
Marksdale says she was visiting friends for the festival and will now considering moving to St. Petersburg within the next year.
“How could you not love this,” she says. “I think I found my home.”
While politicians and candidates were involved in the promenade and the festival, there were many who were absent. St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker did not attend the festival again this year and mayoral candidates Larry Williams and Bill Foster were absent.
One candidate, Paul Congemi, spoke out against the festival in the St. Petersburg Times.
“It is not pride, its shame,” Congemi told the newspaper. “Homosexuality is an abomination, according to the Bible. In my opinion, it’s a perverted event, by perverted people. And something like that shouldn’t be in the newspaper.”
Congemi, along with Williams and Foster, has said if elected he would not support St. Pete Pride nor sign the city’s proclamation.
More than one day
Every year St. Pete Pride receives media coverage along its Central Avenue route. However, some may forget that the annual celebration actually covers a full month of activities.
For Klein, his proudest moment of the 2009 St. Pete Pride celebration happened during the Laughter in Paradise comedy show at the Tradewinds Resort in St. Pete Beach the evening before the festival.
“I was pulled aside by [board members] Dee Ringhhold and Michael Johnson who introduced me to a woman from Tallahassee,” Klein remembers. “She came down last year for her first St. Pete Pride and she came back in 2009. She said she plans to come back every year that she’s able and was just ecstatic about all we were doing here.
“For me, that was the defining moment reminding me why we do this.”
Comedians Gloria Bigalow, Amy Tee and Edison Apple performed for an estimated crowd of 130 people, Klein says. He says the show may have looked smaller than in years past because of the size of the venue.
“If we had held this Laughter in Paradise in Nova 535, where we had it last year, with this number of people, the place would have been packed,” Klein says. “I think the tent changed the perspective for people. I believe the comedy festival was just as big as in years past.”
A voluntary effort
It’s important to remember, Klein says, that St. Pete Pride is a volunteer organization and that every aspect of it incorporates community volunteers.
“We are a completely volunteer board,” Klein says, “and we understand it’s our responsibility to be out there and putting this together. But what really impressed me again this year is the number of people who volunteered their time to make St. Pete Pride 2009 such a success. Everyone from our board members to our block captains to the people who set up and tore down tents donated their time because Pride is something they believe in.”
Klein says he didn’t know how many volunteers actually helped with this year’s celebration, but he knows there were a lot.
“All you had to do was look around the street festival and see the official St. Pete Pride shirts to know we had a ton of help,” he says. “That’s just amazing and it shows how the community can work together. That’s what St. Pete Pride is all about.”
