Peace And Love At The 2025 Columbus Pride Festival

6/20/2025

Books by Patti Liszkay available on Amazon:
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Peace And Love At The 2025 Columbus Pride Festival

A new command I give you: Love one another - John 13:34-35

In the past I've been to a couple of local Pride festivals,

...and one time my daughter and I protested in front of the Columbus Catholic Diocese office for their having fired a lesbian high school teacher just short of her retirement after she was outed by a cruel self-righteous parent.

At none of those times did I feel any fear of participating in an LGBTQ+ event.
But now things are different. With the suppression of LGBTQ+ rights under Donald Trump and his threat against corporations, universities, and other organizations that support those rights, I felt a little fearful about going to this year's Stonewall Columbus Pride Festival.
And my fear annoyed me. I thought, Why should I suddenly be afraid of doing something that I've never been afraid of doing before?
The answer, of course, is that Donald Trump, in his mistreatment of members of the LGBTQ+ community, has given implicit permission to anyone else who'd care to mistreat them to brazenly do so. And I feared that some hateful person or persons might use the Pride Festival as an opportunity to do so, maybe with violence.
But then I got over my fear and I decided to go, as did my mate, Tom.
This year, as last year, the Pride Festival was held in the downtown Columbus neighborhood known as The Short North,

...in beautiful Goodale Park,

...which gave the event a peaceful, pastoral feel, unlike when it used to be held in the busy commercial heart of downtown Columbus.

And, happily, in spite of my fears, this Pride Festival at Goodale Park did in fact turn out to be a peaceful one.
The park was full of folks of all ages,

...some representing,

...some quite decked out for the occasion,

...all of us taking part in what felt like a big, friendly group stroll on this balmy June evening,

...with folks stopping to chat along the way,

...and where we ran into our daughter, who was there with a friend.

There were booths, though not nearly as many as in years past, most of the usual corporate sponsors having pulled their support due to their new Trump-based fear of standing up for diversity, equity and inclusion of all human beings. However, a few businesses did bravely show up to stand up for LGBTQ+ rights.

There were also booths for small artisan enterprises,

...LGBTQ+ organizations,

...dozens of public services,

...and welcoming churches.

All around the park there were messages of acceptance and love.

And there was some neat and/or useful swag being given out.

Most interesting, I thought, was this recruitment booth for the Franklin County Sheriff's Office,

...and this one for Scouting America, formerly the Boy Scouts.

There were food trucks,

...drinks stands,

...and some first-rate porta-potties with porta-sinks, soap, and paper towels to wash and dry our hands.

Which was nice. In fact, the whole evening was nice.
At one point as I was taking in the sights, I thought of all the people who in former times had to live their lives hiding in quiet desperation, oppressed, criminalized, left out, apart. And it's true that even now there are those who are fighting hard to bring back those cruel old days. And that since Donald Trump has come back into power they've won some battles against LGBTQ+ rights, especially against the health, well-being, and right to exist of trans persons. But I don't believe that those people will win. I still believe, along with Martin Luther King, that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.
And besides, there were too many of us in that park on a June evening in Columbus, Ohio,