The organization Bowling Green Fairness is hosting the city’s first-ever Pride Festival this Saturday, in an effort to bring awareness to the legal discrimination against the LGBTQ community.
The group wants city leaders to amend Bowling Green’s existing civil rights legislation to add sexual orientation and gender identity to protected categories in public accommodation, housing, and employment.
Bowling Green Fairness founder Patricia Minter said not including protections for LGBTQ individuals puts the city in a bad light.
“It’s not good for business, it’s not good for Bowling Green, it’s not good for human rights, and it’s certainly not good for individuals that live with this discrimination,” Minter said.
Bowling Green is the largest city in Kentucky without an LGBTQ Fairness Ordinance. Minter said the Pride festival is to celebrate each individual’s identity and also recognize a larger community issue.
“Pride festivals are not just about LBTQ pride. It’s about resistance to oppression for the LGBTQ community, but recognizing that discrimination anywhere is discrimination everywhere,” Minter said.
The Bowling Green Pride Festival will begin Saturday at noon at Circus Square Park, and will include a march to city hall at 5 pm.
