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After RFRA, Rural Pride Festival Expects Strong Showing

Spencer Pride

It's crunch time for the organizers of the Spencer Pride Festival.

At their final meeting, volunteers are spread around the room - some of them are young families with children, others are couples with decades behind them.

Papers printed with a long list of agenda items sit scattered across tables, alongside a colorful banner emblazoned with rainbows and the slogan "Color Our World With Pride."

Secretary Judi Epp is working through the last-minute details before an expected 1,300 people, along with dozens of vendors, fill Spencer's courthouse square for the ninth annual festival. It's a festival that will kick off a slew of other pride parades and celebrations throughout the Hoosier State.

The gathering began in a nearby park in 2007. About 50 people came that year. Now, Epp says the one-day gathering has grown into the largest pride celebration in a small town in Indiana.

"We haven't heard of any rural pride festival that is as big as ours in as small a town as ours," she says. "This year we're really shooting for the stars."

Passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, also known as RFRA, earlier this year made Indiana the target of a national firestorm, and it ignited a statewide discussion about protections for LGBT people.

Epp says she thinks that controversy will draw members of the LGBT community, and its allies, to this year's festival.

"I think our supporters will be out in huge numbers because our festival is a great place to be, but even if they weren't going to come, I think they would come just to show that we can't let things like RFRA stand," Epp says.

Small Town Festival Sends A Message To Lawmakers



That showing is something Freedom Indiana Campaign Manager Katie Blair says can make a real difference. She says Pride events, particularly in smaller towns, sends a message to state lawmakers.

"I think it's really very important because it shows legislators that LGBT people don't exist only in metropolitan areas, only in the doughnut counties around Indianapolis," Blair says. "They exist all across Indiana, and they're their constituents and their neighbors. This really showcases that."

On top of its numerous vendors, the festival has the support of the Owen County Chamber of Commerce - a partnership it only developed in recent years.

Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Gwen Tucker says the festival's unique and family-friendly atmosphere can help combat the stereotype that small towns are unwelcoming or unaccepting of LGBT people.

"I think that it allows us to show the world, show the state, show the community that we are very open and welcoming in Owen County, and we embrace diversity," says Tucker. "And we want everyone to feel welcome and to come see what we have to give everyone."

In addition to the backing of the Chamber of Commerce, festival organizers received a letter of support from House and Senate minority leaders, asking for their help in adding protections for LGBT Hoosiers to the state constitution.

That battle will likely heat up during next year's legislative session as some Democrats seek RFRA's repeal.

Organizers Say It's About Making Changes



Back in the tiny town of Spencer, Epp says the festival sends more immediate messages to the people who live there.

It's the impact we make on people we don't even know.


"One of the stories we like to tell is the first year we were on the courthouse lawn was back in 2008. A young boy rode his bicycle to our festival and told one of the organizers, ‘I can't be here, but I'm so glad that you are,' and he rode off. Now he comes to the festival every year," Epp says. "It's the impact we make on people we don't even know."

And she says the deliberate choices of LGBT community members to make themselves visible does more than send a signal to those in the statehouse. She says it can change the perceptions of others.

"Maybe there's a parent out there in the rural community that doesn't want to show their face because they don't want their neighbors to know they have a gay child, but they see us doing what we're doing, and it makes it more acceptable to that person's neighbors that they have a gay child," Epp says. "We set ourselves up as examples in the community."

The Spencer Pride Festival is a one-day festival that begins Saturday morning.

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