Loud, proud crowd celebrates acceptance at SC Pride festival

They carried signs with messages such as, “Disarm hate,” and wore shirts making statements such as, “Love has no labels.”

Many of the tens of thousands of revelers at Saturday’s Famously Hot S.C. Pride festival in downtown Columbia had a personal statement to make.

And the festival itself – one of the Midlands’ largest events, in its 27th year – had a message to send the Columbia community:

“This is who we are. This is who we’ve been. And you can get with it, or you don’t have to watch the parade,” said Bret Weaver, otherwise known by his drag persona, Amanduh Pleaze, on Saturday. “In the beginning, it was a hidden celebration, and it was so close-knit. But now, it’s open.”

Weaver, 27, and his friend Trei Helms, 18, both of Greenville, said they’ve see Pride events grow in scope and diversity over the years, signaling growing acceptance beyond the gay community.

“The misconception about Pride is that it’s for gay people, and it’s not,” Helms said. It’s also an event for straight allies of the gay community, he said. “It is for everyone.”

Last year’s festival broke an attendance record with more than 35,000 people, and organizers expected Saturday’s event to be “the biggest one we’ve had yet,” S.C. Pride president Jeff March said earlier in the week. Final estimates for Saturday weren’t immediately available.

The event comes more than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage and amid state- and community-level discussions about whether to set rules for transgender people’s use of public restrooms.

One of Helms’ favorite parts of the Pride festival, he said, is seeing families bring their children to the event.

“It’s great,” Helms said, “to see children growing up –”

“– Not like I grew up,” Weaver finished his sentence. “My parents would never have been at something like this. So it’s great to see that our next generation –”

“– Is growing up without oppression,” Helms said.

Some members of the Gay-Straight Alliance club at Chapin’s Spring Hill High School represented that next generation at Saturday’s parade and festival.

“We’re here to support gays and anybody to be themselves,” said Kate Bothe, a 17-year-old senior at Spring Hill.

She and her sister, 15-year-old Jaclyn, praised their parents’ open-mindedness in raising them to be accepting of all people. Their parents, they said, encouraged them to attend the Pride festival.

Not all of their friends, though, have grown up in the same environment. That includes a pair of their friends, neither of whose parents knew they were at Saturday’s festival or approved of their gender and sexuality choices.

But they found themselves in a place of open arms and open minds Saturday.

“Don’t hate people before you’ve met them,” Kate Bothe said. “You can’t judge people if you don’t know their story.”

This story was originally published September 3, 2016 at 5:43 PM with the headline "Loud, proud crowd celebrates acceptance at SC Pride festival."