fbpx

WHEREAS, for six years Colgay Pride set out on a mission to provide our city with its first Broadway City Wide LGBT Pride Festival; it has grown to more than 1000 people attending each year and continues to change lives, and perspectives in our community; and

WHEREAS, the LGBT Pride Festival brings all our citizens together, gay and straight alike to celebrate the power of diversity, to create unity in our community, to hear each other’s stories and our impassioned pleas for better legislation and leadership, to honor those who went above and beyond for equality, to entertain, to bring laughter and to share tears together about our amazing journey on the road to equality; and

WHEREAS, the Georgia General Assembly, after 16 long years, passed a bill which criminalizes hate crimes on the basis of, among other protected classes, sex, sexual orientation and gender, thanks to the strenuous work of the Georgia NAACP, Anti-Defamation League Southeast and Georgia Equality, in response to the hate-motivated murder of Ahmaud Arbery; and

WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia that sexual orientation and gender identity are legally protected from employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, despite arguments to the contrary by a hostile executive branch; and

WHEREAS, Colgay Pride remains ever vigilant against the ongoing threat posed by homophobic and transphobic policy in federal and state government against the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and has participated in the fight against homophobic and transphobic legislation at the state capitol, such as recent attempts to legalize religious discrimination in the workplace and public accommodations against LGBT people in Georgia; and

WHEREAS, all people deserve to live with dignity and respect, free from fear and violence, and protected against discrimination, regardless of their skin color, national origin, hair texture and style, gender identity or sexual orientation; and

WHEREAS, Colgay Pride continues to hold officeholders and political candidates to account regarding their stances and policies toward LGBT people through Equality Town Halls every election year; and

WHEREAS, Colgay Pride supports the participation of the LGBT community in the 2020 U.S. Census and supports the fight to protect the right to vote for all Americans from both onslaughts by partisan politicians as well as the threat of COVID-19; and

WHEREAS, Colgay Pride looks and works not only toward the day when COVID-19 becomes a cautionary footnote in history, and not only to the day when racism, racist practices and police brutality are abolished and removed from our government and civil society, but also to the day when sexual orientation and gender identity are fully protected from discrimination under law in all 50 U.S. states and worldwide;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, B. H. “Skip” Henderson III, MAYOR OF COLUMBUS GEORGIA, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim August 2020 as Columbus Georgia LGBT Pride Month;

IN WITNESS THEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Official Seal of Columbus, Georgia to be affixed this first day of August, 2020.

Honorable B. H. “Skip” Henderson III
Mayor
Columbus, Georgia