Long Beach Pride is a celebration, and this year was meant to be especially triumphant, with the parade and festival returning after the last two years of cancelations caused by the pandemic. But instead of COVID-19, there\u2019s a new weight on organizers\u2019 minds.<\/p>\n
This weekend\u2019s event is taking place amid heightened security concerns and an especially polarized political environment that\u2019s seemed to come from all angles:<\/p>\n
But these threats are nothing new, said City Councilmember Cindy Allen, who is serving as the Morris Kight Political Grand Marshal for this year\u2019s Pride Parade. Resisting oppression has long been part of the pride movement.<\/p>\n
\u201cViolence against LGBTQ people, especially trans people, has been a problem for decades,\u201d Allen said in an emailed statement. \u201cThey aren’t scared and I’m not scared, and I trust our police department to have a strong security plan in place to protect all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police, too, say they\u2019re ready. There are \u201cno known credible threats of violence\u201d against the celebration, an LBPD spokesperson said, but, \u201cWe are maintaining a vigilant posture and increasing our patrol presence through the city, including at public events.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elsa Martinez, president of Long Beach Pride, is cautious in her outlook for the weekend\u2019s events. The Highland Park shooting on July Fourth \u201cchanged the tone\u201d for her, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt scared me a little,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we have had threats in the past, so we\u2019re not unfamiliar with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first Pride Parade took place on Ocean Boulevard in 1984, with just a few people protesting against the event that year.<\/p>\n
But the next year, Judi Doyle, one of Long Beach Pride\u2019s founders, received a message on her answering machine saying that she\u2019d be killed if she marched in the parade. Doyle still took part in the parade, but at the request of the LBPD, she agreed to wear a bulletproof vest, according to Q Voice News<\/a> (Doyle died earlier this year).<\/p>\n There was no violence other than a few protesters throwing eggs, according to Q Voice News.<\/p>\n As late as 2019, apparent threats against the parade appeared on 8chan, an online message board that was heavily used by far-right extremists. After the LBPD deemed the threats \u201cnot credible,\u201d the parade went on as usual, according to the LA Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n Martinez said that this year she and the Pride staff have been working closely with the LBPD on security, as well as employing their own security arrangements.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hectic, but we want to be safe,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n Martinez said she and her staff have met with LBPD personnel a few times during planning for the events, and that the department has reviewed their festival site plans. Still, Martinez said she thinks that \u201csome of our guests will be nervous and scared, honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n Recent legal rulings at the state and federal levels haven\u2019t helped matters, according to Martinez. She said the Supreme Court is \u201ctrying to bring things back\u201d to earlier days.<\/p>\n Though the court\u2019s recent ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization only overturned the earlier precedent that legalized abortion throughout the country, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his opinion that he hoped the court would also \u201creconsider\u201d earlier precedents, including the 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.<\/p>\n Should that happen, it\u2019s likely same-sex marriage could become illegal in California again because of Proposition 8, which voters approved in 2008. Though a U.S. District Court judge eventually ruled that the measure, which outlawed same-sex marriage, was unconstitutional, it remains in the California Constitution.<\/p>\n Though LBTGQ activists are pushing for a new ballot measure that would officially excise Prop. 8\u2019s language from the state constitution, it\u2019s not expected until 2024, according to the San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>.<\/p>\n Martinez also said she\u2019s very aware of the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ laws that have been introduced<\/a> and passed at the state level throughout the country. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of \u2018not good\u2019 out there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n