Pride Month continues to be a fight for the LGBTQ+ population in Lafayette Parish despite making headway in recent years.
The annual June celebration, which locally has been gaining momentum and growing in size, added a parade this year along with other activities where the LGBTQ+ community and their friends, family and supporters could congregate and celebrate.
Two Lafayette City Council members on Friday presented a proclamation, signed by everyone except City Councilman Andy Naquin, to local LGBTQ+ representatives recognizing June as Pride Month. This is the second consecutive year the City Council has granted the recognition and the second year Lafayette Mayor-President Josh Guillory has not.
Shown with a Lafayette City Council proclamation recognizing June as Pride Month are, from left, City Councilman Pat Lewis, Wendy Dorfman of the Queer Collective, Will Thiele and Matthew Humphry of PFLAG Lafayette, and City Councilman Glenn Lazard, Frida
Instead, Guillory issued a statement about equal rights, not discriminating based on sexual orientation and such without ever mentioning Pride Month or LGBTQ, although an email by Chief Communications Officer Jamie Angelle containing the statement listed “MP Guillory Pride Month Statment” in the subject line.
“It’s not lost on me that the council members who prompted this discussion at City Hall are the two Black council members,” Matthew Humphrey, president of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) Lafayette, said Friday. “It’s also not lost on me that the two female council members signed on in support. That’s because they’re part of the minority community.”
They know, he said, what’s it’s like to be asked to sit in back, to not have the right to vote, to face limits on their ability to marry.
City Council Vice Chairman Glenn Lazard, reading Friday from a statement, said, “We vigorously support the rights of all citizens to experience equality and freedom from discrimination.”
He lauded the “immeasurable impact” of LGBTQ+ individuals on the cultural, civic and economic success of the city of Lafayette, committed the council to supporting “visibility, dignity and equality for LGBTQ+ citizens” and called upon the people of the city of Lafayette “to embrace these principles and, with friends and allies, work to eliminate prejudice against all citizens.”
Book displays about specific segments of the community like this one for Pride Month in June 2021 are no longer allowed in Lafayette Parish public libraries in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Pride Month started off with a new controversy involving the Lafayette Parish public library system, the source of struggles for LGBTQ+ residents this year.
On May 31, Library Director Danny Gillane instructed librarians they were no longer allowed to create book displays on any particular segment of the population or anything controversial topics like Pride Month, Black History Month and Women’s History Month.
Gillane said at the time he is trying to protect books and videos by not drawing attention to them in the wake of three attempts by two people who don’t live in Lafayette Parish to ban books and a video.
None were banned, but restrictions were placed on the video by the library board and Gillane relocated the teen nonfiction section to the adult nonfiction section to appease library board members and some patrons concerned about teens and children stumbling upon books about LGBTQ issues.
Gillane’s decision to restrict book display topics drew national publicity. Various local groups issued statements opposing the policy, including the Lafayette branch of the NAACP, Lafayette Citizens Against Censorship, Move the Mindset and the League of Women Voters of Lafayette.
Lafayette Library Board of Control member James Thomas, right, is shown with Library Director Danny Gillane.
The library board is scheduled to meet at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday. Board member James Thomas asked President Robert Judge, who opposed Drag Queen Story Time at the library before he was appointed to the board, to place the book display matter on the agenda for discussion.
Article 4, Section 3 of the board’s bylaws posted online states, “Board members shall also have the right to place matters on the agenda.”
Thomas told The Acadiana Advocate on Thursday Judge rejected his request because board action isn’t needed.
“Since it was such a big topic, on national news and everything, I wanted the board to have a discussion,” Thomas said.
He intends to comment on the display issue at the meeting and has questions. He declined to elaborate.
City Councilman Pat Lewis on Friday noted the Parish Council appoints most of the library board members. The City Council has no input.
“I prefer he wouldn’t do that,” Lewis said of Gillane’s decision. “I wish he would retract it.”
Lazard also said he does not support the decision.
“I don’t think it’s good policy,” he said.
Matthew Humphrey, an LGBTQ+ advocate, poses with fake handcuffs and tape over his mouth after he was arrested for speaking out of order during a Lafayette Parish Library Board meeting Feb. 21, 2022, in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Humphrey called the events happening in the country and in Lafayette a new civil rights era, encouraging all minority groups, including LGBTQ+, Blacks and Latinos, to unite and push back.
“The LGBTQ community in Lafayette will accept nothing more than full embrace from its elected officials,” he said. “They’re welcome to get left behind on the wrong side of history.”
