St. Petersburg – Every St. Pete Pride celebration seems to be more festive and colorful than the previous. But expect Gay Pride to truly rain down this June, thanks to the supportive nature of the city’s newly elected mayor, Rick Kriseman.
“I will absolutely participate in the parade this year,” Kriseman told Watermark. “And not only will I be participating, I’m encouraging all city employees who would like to join us to walk with us in the parade. Including police and fire, which has never happened before.”
This will mark the first time in the 12-year history of St. Pete Pride that a sitting St. Petersburg mayor actively participates in the parade.
“We have a whole lot of things planned for June, Pride month,” Kriseman continued. “We’re going to be doing some fun things and announcing things that will really celebrate and recognize the month as a whole. It’s important.”
Kriseman alluded to the Mayors for Marriage Equality petition, which asks mayors from around the country to declare support for marriage equality in the United States. According to Kevin King, his chief of staff, the mayor will add his signature to that sometime in June.
“Freedom to Marry contacted us and said mayors were doing big announcements in May, and we told them to go ahead without us because we wanted to do something in June,” King said. “Doing something like that in Pride month makes more sense.”
Kriseman said he supports marriage equality and shared the story of his sister’s marriage to her wife. She is a resident of Georgia, he said, and since that state doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages, the couple had to travel to Washington, D.C. to be legally wed.
“It’s sad that people have to leave the state they live in to get married,” Kriseman said. “It shouldn’t be that way. It’s possible [Florida could achieve marriage equality] but we need to see changes in the legislature and in the administration of the state.”
In the meantime, Kriseman wants to make sure the LGBT community knows it is welcome in his city and that St. Pete Pride has his full support. He applauds the organization’s growth and its decision to divide the festival and the parade into a two-day event.
“The festival and the parade both grew and it came to a point where it was difficult for the two to exist,” Kriseman said. “They were on top of each other—vendors and businesses setting up booths and contending with the large crowds of the parade. This is a problem you want to have. I give a lot of credit to the organizers for recognizing that it may have outgrown its status as a single, solo event.”
Kriseman is no stranger to St. Pete Pride. As a St. Petersburg city councilman, he was the first elected official in the city to sign the St. Pete Pride proclamation when it started in 2003. He continued to sign the proclamation until 2006, the year he left St. Petersburg and served as a representative in Tallahassee.
In 2013 he and his campaign marched in the parade and he and King both believe that was a shifting point in the election cycle. But what really stuck with Kriseman was the community’s commitment to St. Pete Pride.
“The weather last year wasn’t very cooperative to say the least,” Kriseman laughed. “We had several downpours over the span of the day and what amazed me was, despite that, people had a great time and didn’t care. The rain would let up and they’d come back into the street. It was wonderful!”
The mayor is working on other ways to make St. Petersburg more welcoming to the LGBT community outside of his participation in St. Pete Pride. He plans to announce a new LGBT liaison sometime in June and he wants his city to get a higher score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipality Index.
“We’ve been doing things in this community for a long time that I don’t know that we’re getting credit for,” Kriseman said. “We want to make sure those things are recognized and expand what we’re doing to include the LGBT community. We want to do that because it’s the right thing to do and because we want the rest of the world to know what kind of city we have.”
While a lot of the LGBT-themed activities are still under wraps for city hall this year—the mayor wouldn’t comment on rumors of a rainbow flag flying overhead all month long—one thing on the agenda is certain. Kriseman and the City Council will read and sign the St. Pete Pride proclamation on June 12.
