Pride! Alliance and others celebrate diversity
The Utah State University annual Gay Pride! festival was held Thursday on the Taggart Student Center patio.
The Cache Valley Unitarian Universalists (CVUU), Unity Utah and the Imperial Court of Northern Utah (ICNU) were among some of the organizations involved in the festival.
Chad Wright, director of the Pride! Alliance, said people were asking good questions. The festival began with the announcement of the recipients of the Diversity Scholarship. The scholarship went to Sarah Benanti, Chad Wright and Marty Northrip. This was followed by Michael Mitchell, executive director of Unity Utah, a gay and lesbian political activist organization. Mitchell touched on the subject of hate crime laws in Utah.
In his address to the heterosexual majority, Mitchell said, “Gays and lesbians love and care for each other with or without your permission.”
He said non-gay people choose to get married, and they can, while gay people are not allowed to do so.
Mitchell also said because of the struggles of gay people to be a part of society they are stronger.
“We are brutally honest. We are brave. We are resilient,” he said.
He said in spite of their struggles, gay people “love fiercely.”
To the non-gay audience, he said, “We are laughing at you, not with you.”
In his closing remarks, Mitchell said the thing that matters when one dies is to be able to stand in front of God and say, “I have loved, was loved and was truly just me.”
Celestial Starr Bybee, president of the Associated Students of Utah State University, took the stand after Mitchell. In her address, she said her role as ASUSU president is to be “an advocate for diversity.” She said she supported President Kermit L. Hall’s legislation in bringing a diversity vice president onto the campus.
She urged students to be “passionate and confident in [their] beliefs.”
“A homogenous student body limits learning,” she said. “As humans we need to be understood.”
Bybee said students should love and accept people for what they are. In closing she thanked everyone for their participation and attendance.
A part of the festival was the drag performances by the ICNU. The organization is a non-profit organization specializing in drag performances to help raise funds for special occasions such as this. The festival featured performances by drag queens Tashya Salad, Felicity Diamond and others.
Drag queen Salad, whose real name is Brandon Millard, has been performing for almost two and one-half years. He said the fact he is helping in raising funds for a good cause makes it all worth it.
The ICNU also performed in Cache Valley’s first annual Gay-Butante Ball on Friday. The ball was organized by Tim Nuttle, board member of Pride! Alliance, and the CVUU. The purpose of the ball was to help raise money for the university’s Gay and Lesbian Resource Center (GLRC) and the CVUU, Nuttle said.
Nancy West, president of CVUU, said she hopes to raise $2,000. The money will be divided evenly between the GLRC and CVUU, she said. It will help in the funding in both organizations.
The ball, held at the Bullen Center, was a success, Nuttle said. In an e-mail, he said the ball was able to raise more than $1,500 for the GLRC alone, not including ticket sales.
Other than its success, the ball also provided gay individuals the opportunity to “come out” freely as themselves. According to a joint press release by the GLRC and the CVUU, “In the butante tradition of ‘coming out’ into society, the evening is an opportunity for Cache Valley’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and straight citizens to ‘come out’ together.”