We have pride in Madison

The rumors about the death of Pride in Madison have been greatly exaggerated.

While most cities celebrate Gay Pride in June, Madison (perhaps unsurprisingly) likes to march to the beat of its own, unique drummer and get their festivities on in July. Specifically, this weekend. There has been much said of the major tumble taken by the Madison Pride organization, wherein their now former bookkeeper did a not-so-legit job of keeping said books. Because of that debacle, this year's events hosted by the group have been scaled back considerably.

Still, I have to give kudos to them for sticking with it and making something happen despite the trouble. Madison Pride has done a good job of providing the more family and politically oriented GLBTQ celebrations of years past, and I'm hopeful that they'll see their way through the mess and grow bigger and better in the future.

It's definitely worth noting, however, that this door closing has lead to an impressively opened window. Liz Tymus of indie Queer fame, plus a gaggle of other dedicated folks, have put together an awesome weekend of Pride festivities that may very well foreshadow the future of this high holiday of queerness in Madison. While it's important to maintain the more traditional celebrations, it's great to see that a new generation of queer and queer-friendly people are continuing to carry the banner, creating newer and more diverse celebrations that help to elevate every corner of the community. After what seemed like a long dry spell for gay friendly events and organizations around Madison, the last couple of years have seen a welcome upswing--from Patrick Farabaugh and the founding of Our Lives Magazine, to the rise of indie Queer, to the opening of Woof's, and the Majestic being so accomodating to queer events, things are looking up.

So while getting your Pride on is much less confined to just one weekend these days, it's good to know that the big celebration will never die. In fact, it seems to be growing up and branching out, which is most welcome.

Happy Pride!

P.S. Yours truly is also doing her best to contribute by throwing what promises to be one of the coolest events of the summer. Find out more by clicking on that fancy banner to the right of this text, and then come out to the Majestic next Saturday! Seriously, it'll be worth it if for nothing else than to see me freaking right the fuck out over organizing and producing something of this magnitude, pretty much all on my own.