LGBTQ+ advocates, St. Pete City Council and Mayor Ken Welch with the Pride Proclamation June 11. (Photo courtesy the City of St. Pete/Facebook)
ST. PETERSBURG | The City of St. Petersburg has proclaimed June as both Pride Month and Inclusive Family and Faith Month, drawing support and scrutiny from local LGBTQ+ advocates.
Each proclamation was read during the St. Petersburg City Council meeting June 11, the same date Mayor Ken Welch formally recognized the latter. He recognized Pride Month June 1.
The meeting also recognized June 12 as Pulse Remembrance Day with a proclamation read by City Council Vice Chair Richie Floyd. Reflecting on the 10-year mark, he said the tragedy “shows the exact reason why it’s so important that we stand up for everyone in our community.”
City of Orlando Community Engagement Manager Luis Martinez accepted the proclamation on behalf of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. Welch followed with the Pride Month proclamation, thanking Floyd and Martinez for their words.
“Today is a day where we stand on who we are as a community and I’m honored to remember that just a week ago we raised our flag in honor of Pride Month,” he began, a ceremony that included the city’s pop-up Shine with Pride event. Progressive Pride colors were also affixed to the steps of City Hall beforehand.
“We’re especially proud to celebrate the diversity of our community in the climate that we face in our nation today,” Welch continued. “Our city is inclusive of all residents.”
St. Petersburg LGBTQ+ Liaison Nathan Bruemmer and representatives from local LGBTQ+ organizations subsequently stood as the proclamation was read. Bruemmer called them “a beautiful representation of our city.”
OUT Arts & Culture President James Bake, Gay Men’s Chorus of Tampa Bay Artistic Director Jeremiah Cummings and SAGE Director of Impact & Engagement Jane Haskell spoke next. They shared details about their organizations and the importance of LGBTQ+ visibility.
City Council Chair Lisset Hanewicz thanked them for doing so before inviting Councilmember Corey Givens Jr. — the governing body’s sole member not to attend the flag raising — to read the Inclusive Family and Faith Month proclamation.
He invited members of local congregations to join him at the podium, thanking them “for being bold and courageous and standing with me today as we recognize Faith and Family Month.”
While groups that petition governments to recognize Faith and Family Month in June do not explicitly advise they are designed to counter Pride Month, statements of faith advise that they affirm marriage between one man and one woman. They also state gender is “encoded at conception, and changeless.”
Seen as anti-LGBTQ+ by advocates for this reason, St. Petersburg officials sought to counter this message by adding Inclusive to the proclamation. A second paragraph recognized that “valued families come in a variety of forms,” including those headed by “same-sex couples” and more.
Givens omitted both the word “Inclusive” and the majority of that paragraph. In reading it on the mayor’s behalf, however, he referenced that Welch declared June as “Inclusive Faith and Family Month.”
After supporters shared remarks, Councilmember Deborah Figgs-Sanders noted that “a piece of the proclamation … was omitted, and I want to take the opportunity to read what it says.”
She advised that she was a single parent and added that “I want to make sure that our families, in any and every form, know that we are an inclusive city and that this proclamation celebrates everyone.”
Councilmember Gina Driscoll then noted councilmembers are “typically not given liberty to change the wording of something that the mayor has written and signed.” She thanked Figgs-Sanders for “making sure that the entire intent of that proclamation was read properly.”
Givens responded. He thanked attendees and advised “this was not meant to divert any attention from … one celebration or another, but the intent was to prove we can love all God’s children, and we can celebrate all God’s people, all in the same month.”
Hanewicz then emphasized that proclamations “don’t come from us individually or from us as a city council.” Instead, they come from Welch “and when we read them, we are supposed to read the proclamation as it is presented… I think that is important for everyone to understand.”
Welch addressed the matter afterwards during St Pete Pride’s Stonewall Reception.
“We made sure that it was the inclusive definition of families and that was included in the proclamation,” the mayor said. “Unfortunately, the councilmember who read it decided to leave that paragraph out.”
The mayor praised Figgs-Sanders for addressing the discrepancy, noting that the council supported her efforts. “To me,” he shared, “that talks about who we are as a community.”
Watermark Out News has reached out to Givens Jr. and the mayor’s office for additional comment and will update this story should it be received. Read each proclamation in full below via the City of St. Petersburg:
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