Pride Festival

Calderdale Pride and Bar Place will be teaming up for the first heat of Pride’s Got Talent on Saturday 3rd December.
Pride Secretary Vikki Kitson said “We’re opening things up this time around and giving people a say in who and what they want to see onstage at Pride 2012”.

Chicago Blackhawks hockey player Brent Sopel [pictured] will carry the Stanley Cup in the Chicago Gay Pride Parade, along with his wife and four kids. Sopel is marching in honor of Brendan Burke, the son of Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke, who was killed in a car accident two months after coming out late last year. According to the Chicago Sun Times, Blackhawks President John McDonough is rerouting the Stanley Cup from the NHL draft in L.A. to the parade.

Will Phillips will serve as Grand Marshal for the Northwest Arkansas Gay Pride parade in Fayetteville this weekend. Phillips made headlines last year for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance at his school until all Americans had full equality. Last October he asked his parents whether it was against the law not to stand for the pledge. On Monday, Oct. 5, when the other kids in his class stood up to recite the Pledge, he remained sitting down. He did it again the next day, and the next day.

Max Mutchnick [not pictured] offers his unique observations of a major Pride Festival. He recently attended LA Pride with his family [husband and twin girls]. His latest contribution to The Huffington Post allows us to feel his anxiety and share his disappointment about being an outsider at such a supposedly welcoming event.

Southwest Airlines is "the airline of gay and lesbian San Francisco," for at least one year. The San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau and Southwest want to increase the number of gay and lesbian travelers visiting the city, so the $180,000 tourism campaign will focus on advertising and marketing - including ticket giveaways.

Even after 10 years with Ruth, Kim tells the Salt Lake Tribune, "There's just not an acknowledgement that we're a family".

Growing up, they heard the gay jokes. They thought gay people got diseases or would go to hell. Kim recalls hearing homphobic slurs in seventh grade. And a church leader told Ruth, if she wanted to be happy, she should get a husband.