There won’t be any scantily clad drag queens prancing around the public stage at Soldotna Creek Park this June, after organizers of “Pride in the Park” cancelled the annual display of LGBTQ sexuality on the Kenai Peninsula.
Citing a lack of volunteers and organizers, the Soldotna Pride Council announced that it is “taking a break” from its controversial and deeply divisive festival, which for years has prompted protests from concerned citizens.
Since 2019, the Pride in the Park event has drawn radical LGBTQ activists to the Soldotna area, where they parade through town exhibiting myriad sexualities before gathering at a local park for variety shows that include sexually suggestive drag queen dancers, costume contests and the celebration of “queer joy for all ages.”
Several years ago, the event sparked heated controversy after a video of Anchorage drag queen Brenden Badd went viral. It shows a man wearing a costume that appears to be a miniskirt and a thong as he twerked and did backflips in front of young children. Another performance included Badd in a leather miniskirt gyrating just a few feet in front of minors.
These and other performances prompted concerned citizens to flood the Soldotna City Council chambers demanding that they limit lewd displays of public behavior in city parks.
Others have organized protests to counter the LGBTQ agenda in the community.
In cancelling this year’s event, organizers claimed they needed time to “rest, recharge, and build back our team.”
“This decision was not made lightly and came after months of hard work and persistence trying to gather what is needed for a successful event,” the group posted to its Facebook page. “Our community means the world to us, but we recognize that sustaining this work requires us to care for ourselves and plan for the future of Soldotna Pride.”
While this year’s festival is canned, organizers are going forward with a scaled down LGBTQ-themed march on June 13. Marchers will walk from Soldotna Creek Park to The Goods, a local “eco-friendly” grocery store and café that partners with LGBTQ activists and other left-leaning causes.
Organizers are also hoping to restore Pride in the Park in 2027, if they can recruit more activists.
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In the meantime, conservative-minded protesters will once again mobilize to counter the Pride March.
Protest organizer Toby Burke said he welcomes the demise of the event, but he acknowledged that local residents must be vigilant in resisting the advance of the LGBTQ agenda in the community.
“I assert these LGTB+ Peninsula events were never organically grown but were predictably bankrolled by outsiders hoping to forcibly inject synthetic liberal ideologies into the life of Peninsula citizens – via the largess of government (taxpayer) money,” Burke wrote to supporters. “As the federal money continues to dry up, commensurately, so does the will to advocate for and sustain these perverse and alien ideologies.”
Counter protesters are planning to assemble and peaceably meet the LGBTQ marchers along their route, in order to affirm that there is a “better more perfect way.”
The march is set to start at 11 a.m. on June 13 – proceeding from Soldotna Creek Park to The Goods grocery store.
19 Comments
This is not “breaking news.” The Soldotna Pride Council made the decision to not have Pride in the Park back in February. The Pride March & Celebration is still on for June 13th.
it is breaking news to some of us! And very glad to hear it has been canceled. Keep up the good work of protecting our youth .
Good, keep the perversion and mental illness out of the public square.
I’m not in the LBGT category, but I camp with them near the same picnic table. I’d be interested to know your definition of what “mental illness “ is and how it applies to these others . Would you mind sharing that? There are a billion beliefs about a million different things and why do you label some as “perversion”?
A mental illness is a health condition that significantly affects a person’s thinking, emotions, mood, or behavior. In the DSM-5-TR, Gender Dysphoria refers to the clinically significant distress or impairment that arises from an incongruence between a person’s experienced/expressed gender and their assigned sex at birth. Concerns about societal pressure to conform to new or shifting norms often stem from the tension between individual expression and collective values. An example of long established norms that the mentally ill are attempting to shift due to political and social pressure are restrooms and changing rooms assigned to biologic genders recognized for the past several thousands of years. There is a difference between tolerance (respecting an individual’s right to exist without interference) and acceptance (actively validating or supporting certain behaviors or identities).
Amen, the kenai is standing up to this stupidness. It’s sickening and disgusting, plus these parents who took their kids to this filth, should be ashamed of themselves.
Why are you lying? This decision was made months ago and has nothing to do with a lack of support.
Lgbt activists have been more active than ever all over the country. You don’t seem to understand that you can’t erase queer people. Every time you guys try to attack or trash someone for being queer, you create a bunch more activists. Because those people are cherished parts of their communities, and attacking them is attacking the people that love them.
How is the author lying?
Hooray it’s over! No more children to be poached by those who prey upon them.
No one wants to erase queer people, nor do we want their perversion flaunted, or indoctrinated to the young.
I believe the locals are speaking volumes through their autonomous purchasing. The Goods has been posting on social media their need for local support because they are struggling financially. After reading this article, their struggle is starting to make more sense.
How is it that the alphabet crowd needs to be publicly recognized and applauded, or else they are being “erased?” Nobody has forced you to stop satisfying your sexual urges with consenting adults, but somehow, if we don’t stand up and applaud you for being a pervert, you cease to exist. I’m terribly sorry you feel so put out by your choice to flaunt the rules of society, but I don’t think anyone has prevented you from doing so. And, as with any choice, there are consequences, which in this case means your feelings get a little bruised. Get over yourself already.
Well said Tamra.
If only it were so easy to erase such a people.
Funny that they find the slightest opposition to their group (10 comments online) to be erasure. Ha!
Just goes to show that they are VERY easy to manipulate into action. No critical thinking skill, only reactionary NPC personalities.
Easy pickins if you ask me.
Make them pay for their own surgeries.
The author is not lying you can read their information on their Facebook page.Anyway their parade is just so meh boring.I will be out with my horses.
Fairbanks Alaska Facebook page is toxic. The whole page and the whole city is homophobic and transphobic. They are heavily trash talking this event. Not surprising.
I’ve got a new word for description of all the weird one’s that constantly refer to others as homophobic, and transphobic; moralphobics.
You really need to learn proper english. Phobia is an irrational fear. People are not “phobic” of people who have strange sexual fetishes. They are disgusted that those people find it necessary to force their sexual identity onto the public. That stuff should remain private between consenting adults.
Perhaps the LGBT shouldn’t be rejectionphobic. So afraid of the world rejecting them that they have to whine and moan as a group against others that just want to mind their own business.
The LGBT stole the rainbow from the rest of us and want to steal the attention from us and have the gall to call every “phobic” if they reject it.
Get real you perverts. We don’t care anymore. Just leave us alone and feel free to party it up at Mad Myrna.
If we are gonna have scantily clad individuals prancing around in the open, can it at least be real authentic and beautiful women instead of men pretending to be women? Why does the LGBT mafia hate real and healthy women so much anyways?
I want to be tantalized by the good looking opposite sex, not smelly men who wear beards and dresses.
Bring back true gentlemen’s entertainment!