June is Pride Month. For many in the LGBTQIA+ community, that means 30 days of basking in queer joy and celebrating the freedoms that have been fought for and earned through various gay rights movements.
But for others, Pride Month is taken as an opportunity to spread hateful messages, to fear monger, to threaten those same queer people. Last week, Colorado saw these displays of homophobia first-hand, when the State Republican Party posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, calling for the burning of all pride flags.
That same day, the GOP sent out a mass email accusing the LGBTQ community of being QUOTE “godless groomers” who want to harm children. State Republican Party Chair Dave Williams signed that email.
There’s growing calls to remove Williams from his leadership role, with many saying that he does not speak on behalf of the Republican Party. Williams insists he will not resign.
KGNU’s Jackie Sedley spoke with Mardi Moore, the Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Equality – formerly known as Out Boulder County. They discussed Williams, Colorado’s relationship to the LGBTQ+ community, and what safety can look like for queer people in the state and nationwide.
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Untitled Jackie Sedley
Transcript:
Jackie Sedley: June is Pride Month. And for many in the LGBTQIA+ community, that means 30 days of basking in queer joy and celebrating the freedoms that have been fought for and earned through many gay rights movements. But for others, Pride Month is taken as an opportunity to spread hateful messages, to fearmonger, to threaten those same queer people.
Last week, Colorado saw these displays of homophobia firsthand when the state Republican Party posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, calling for the burning of all Pride flags. That same day, the GOP sent out a mass email accusing the LGBTQ community of being, QUOTE “godless groomers who want to harm children.”
State Republican Party Chair Dave Williams signed that email. There’s growing calls to remove Williams from his leadership role, with many saying that he does not speak on behalf of the Republican Party. Williams insists he will not resign.
Here to talk about Williams, as well as Colorado’s relationship with the LGBTQ community during Pride Month and year round, is Mardi Moore. She’s the Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Equality, formerly known as Out Boulder County. Mardi, good morning.
Mardi Moore: Good morning. Good morning. So glad to be here with you.
Sedley: So a lot of people I spoke to were shocked when they got word that party chair Dave Williams sent out such a hateful email. As someone who leads LGBTQ initiatives in Colorado, were you surprised that someone in such a prominent leadership role would send out something like this?
Moore: You know, I heard that the Colorado Republican Party had gone off the rails. Um, so I wasn’t surprised, but I was a bit surprised in the really hateful language and burning of, burning of flags. A little bit surprised about the venom, but not that it happened.
Sedley: Historically, is this common with the relationship with the Republican Party here? I moved here a year ago, so I’m newer to it.
Moore: Colorado has a long history of Christian conservative hate against the LGBTQ community. You know, I grew up in Colorado, in southeastern Colorado, in rural community, and we would go to Denver. Denver-ish to see my grandparents. So I remember the early days of Focus on the Family, um, in, in my lifetime.
And, and there were pieces before that. You know, last election season, um, the Alliance Defending Freedom I think was their name, and Stephen Miller, and, and the folks like that targeted Latino voters, in Colorado with mailers with like Joe Biden, you know, peeking over a toilet stall, trying to bring Latinos into the fold.
It didn’t work. We won the races that we needed to win, but, so I’m not surprised, um, because it’s Colorado. People describe it as purple. There are some very, very red pieces of the state.
Sedley: And in addition to that, Colorado is frequently referred to as one of the most LGBTQ friendly states. The Movement Advancement Project ranks the state high, one of the highest, on the list of places with solid policy protections for queer residents. But when people like William spread such hate speech in a place considered to be pretty progressive toward and protective of LGBTQ people, it makes you think, what defines safety, really? Is it legal policy? Is it having strong, supportive community? How would you describe it?
Moore: The latter. Policy is one thing. Changing hearts and minds is typically, is completely another thing. Movement Advancement Project, which is a fantastic research organization for our LGBTQ+ community, does great work. I’m, I’m not exactly sure which study you’re referring to with them, but you know, if you look through Colorado’s laws, we have the ban on conversion therapy, which doesn’t impact churches who spread, um, this way of trying to convert people back to straight, which is ridiculous.
In Colorado right now, we have the Defense of Marriage Act in our Constitution. The legislature at the end of the session this year put on our ballot, so in November we’ll have the opportunity to remove the Defense of Marriage Act from our Constitution, which is very important because we saw what happened to Roe v. Wade, uh, Obergefell is on their radar screen, and so if that would fall, marriage in Colorado would be only between a man and a woman. So we have a chance to, uh, repeal that. Um, so that’s an example of something we could change that would be important. Um, and we think that we have an opportunity because hearts and minds have changed along with it.
I have this great story of friends who moved from D.C. to, one of them was teaching at Drake. So they’d moved to Iowa, and Iowa was one of the first states to get married. And they were married when they got there. And they said it was one of the most hateful places ever around their marriage. So they might have had the law, but they did that judicially. It wasn’t a vote of the people, and so culture hadn’t shifted.
Sedley: Mm. And that cultural piece, that is really what we’re talking about here, right?
Moore: The cultural piece is great, and you know, I get a little bit of grief about pride flags. Why are you spending money on pride flags? Well, first is we don’t spend a ton of money on pride flags. Cities buy them themselves and we like are the go between and we volunteers hang them for them and such, but visibility matters. And one of the things that I love about Boulder in particular and one business in Longmont that I see, Longmont Restorative Justice, they hang their pride flag all year long. When you’re driving down Main Street, that’s the one flag that you see in Longmont, which is where I live.
But in Boulder, there’s flags everywhere. We gave out over 300 on Pearl Street in the last couple of weeks. But those flags stay up year-round. And I always feel good as a shopper, as a lesbian, like, “Oh, wow,” you know, “I can just walk in here and be myself. I don’t have to pay close attention.”
Now, there are some places in Boulder that you don’t want to go. I mean, Boulder is a great place and also it has its issues. In the last year, you know, bullying is real in schools, right? And so coming out of the pandemic, kids being at home with their folks with Fox News on, came back into the classroom with some pretty heavy hate. And the schools and the teachers had to deal with that, some better than others. but we’re always there to give a helping hand to parents and students who are fighting systemic injustice within our school districts.
Sedley: In terms of visibility, talking about that, I’m personally very loud and proud about my, my own queerness, but when hateful rhetoric like this is spread, it, it can add a layer of fear to that pride, fear not just of judgment or rejection, but of retaliation or legitimate violence. How do you feel about continuing and giving outspokenly queer, even in the face of these kinds of threats that are pretty serious or can feel very serious?
Moore: You know, it’s a great question. It’s a tough question. Like, how do you hold all of that pain and feel joy? And I think first you have to acknowledge the pain, and not pretend like that hateful message from the Republicans didn’t cross your feet. And what does that mean to you as an individual? And as we talk about poor mental health and the, in the entire community, and then look specifically at LGBTQ folks who have higher rates of depression, not because we’re more prone to depression, but because the world’s tough or anxiety just go down the list.
How do you have that throw on your rainbows or your trans flag, whatever flag you’re wearing, or flying, and head down to a celebration. We had Longmont Pride last Friday and we probably had 3,500, 4,000 people. It’s not fenced. So you don’t get an actual head count, but best guess is about 4,000 folks and people were happy.
But we acknowledged, I acknowledged from the stage that I had reticence showing up at Pride. The email, or the message from the Republicans, had just dropped. If you pay attention to national news, you’ve seen that protests have been breaking out, violence had been breaking out on the East Coast at some Pride celebrations.
We know that we’re targets. And how do you remain brave and hopeful in all of that? Through community. So events like Longmont Pride, Boulder Pride is on June 30th this year. Coming up, I think this, this coming week, Lafayette is having a pride also and Lyons Pride and Loveland Pride, just go down the list.
Every community, there’s somebody like you and me who’s there, who’s organizing, who knows it’s important for our, to be visible and to be proud. And those are the people that you gotta hang on to because they’re gonna take us out of what I consider a very dark period for LGBTQ people in the United States on to better things.
Sedley: Mardi Moore, Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Equality, formerly known as Out Boulder County, thank you so much for, for being here and happy Pride Month.
Moore: Happy Pride Month!
