June is LGBT Pride Month and two of Seattle’s largest festivities are barring cops from attending or patrolling. In one case, Delta Airlines is supporting an event with an adversarial view of police.
Both PrideFest and Capitol Hill Pride are asking cops to stay away, though for somewhat different reasons. Despite the thousands expected to attend both events, officers are not welcome on site unless there’s an active emergency. Cops are, apparently, too triggering to LGBT attendees — or at least the leadership of both groups.
Beyond the clear public safety issues this decision could pose, it sends a clear message to gay officers: stay in the closet as cops. So why is Delta effectively sponsoring this message?
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PrideFest says no to police
PrideFest, presented by Delta Airlines, orchestrates the festivities at Seattle Center after the Pride March in downtown Seattle.
Its executive director, former city council candidate Egan Orion, confirms to the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH that they asked the police to “limit their direct engagement with event-goers on festival grounds to emergencies.”
“PrideFest serves historically over-policed LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities,” Orion explained in an email to the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “Pride actually came out of the Stonewall riots in New York in late June 1969 and was a response to pernicious and relentless police harassment and violence. We have come a long way since 1969, but many in our community still feel less safe with a police presence, based on their own lived experience. We take the safety of everyone who attends our events very seriously.”
Message to gay cops: keep part of you in the closet
Orion says he’d prefer gay officers not to attend in their uniforms.
“On LGBTQIA+ officers showing up in uniform to the event but not on duty, I don’t really understand why someone would do that,” he explained.
This is an odd…