I’ve lived in New York, Philadelphia, LA, and San Francisco—two blocks from the corner of Castro and Market—so I’ve seen my share of well-funded, high-style Pride celebrations.
I wondered what I’d find at the second annual Pocono Pride Fest in Stroudsburg, PA (population 27,000), close to where I’ve been holing up since the pandemic began.I was there with a message: My super-progressive Episcopal church not only “accepts” LGBTQ people, we celebrate them.
After all, Jesus had two dads, spent years living with a dozen other dudes, and he didn’t even know that homophobe Leviticus.As I packed up our “Love Is Love” postcards and headed to the town square, I wondered about the level of support for Pride a place surrounded by red counties in three directions.
They say Pennsylvania basically boils down to Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the West, and in between, “a whole lotta Alabama.”Related: These Pride princes drowned out a homophobic protester in the most amazing way possibleBy afternoon’s end, the teens, seniors, punk rockers and drag queens had given me renewed hope for the future.