One bit of bright news in a city that’s had more than its share of bad news over the last week: today is the kick-off of Springfield’s revived LGBT Pride week.
Actually, make that week-plus-one; Pride starts today and runs through next Thursday, the 16th. (See here for a full schedule.)
The week’s first event will be a screening, this evening, of the 2009 documentary “Out in the Silence.” The film looks at Joe Wilson’s return to his small, conservative Pennsylvania hometown after the local paper ran an announcement of his wedding, to another man, touching dismayingly ugly backlash. (“It would have been better for you not to have been born,” one man told Wilson, via a letter to the editor.) Back home in Oil City, Wilson documents the experiences of a gay teenager who’s being tormented at school, a lesbian couple trying to open at art deco theater in town, and an anti-gay fundamentalist preacher.
Wilson will be at tonight’s screening, which will take place at Springfield Technical Community College’s Scibelli Hall Theater, at 6 p.m.
Tomorrow, June 9, city officials will raise a Pride flag at City Hall at noon. Mayor Domenic Sarno is expected to be at the event, although his office warns that on-going post-tornado activities could prevent him from making it. Ward 6 City Councilor Amaad Rivera and City Council President Jose Tosado are also expected to speak at the event.
