It's a bit hard for a lot of people to support the equal rights of the LGBT community with all the hatred and bigotry in this country, especially South Carolina. However, Upstate Pride had a great turnout of folks. We had our own little booth at Barnet Park, and after seeing a lot of folks, we get to march.
Most people went to march, but we had a few stay to make sure nobody came in to mess up our booths. Line-up was pretty simple and easy. Didn't take long to get the ball rolling.
Even while we were waiting, I still had a good time. The drinking liberally guys, and the athiests for gay rights group were a nice bunch of people.
We marched and we marched proud. I loved my sign, and marching with my fellow Young Dems will be one of most cherished memories for years to come.
The march wasn't too long, but it sure was HOT. We clapped, sung, and chanted a lot of phrases for equality. We did lag a bit behind everyone, I think our "regular" non-young Democrats got a bit ahead of us, and before we knew it we were at the near-tail of the line.
The end of the march was met with quite a success. We proudly marched back to Barnet Park.
We did a get bit of protesters who camped out near Barnet Park to yell, scream, and use hate speech against everyone.
But most didn't try to talk back, and I don't think we had too much trouble out of them. They stayed for awhile after the march took place, but only a few remain when I went to my car to pick up my girlfriend Daisy so she could come to the rest of the event.
Jacob and Hirak did a good job at holding down the fort while we gone, and the rest of Young Dems also helped in promoting and getting new members to our group.
The rest of the event was mainly a bunch of speeches, and tents with info or stuff to buy. I loved the speech given by Mayor Junie White of Spartanburg.
But we also had a lot of good tents at the event as well. Such as the For Gay Teens from Gay Teens support group, which one of our members Alex (far right near the yellow sign) is apart of.
This was my first LGBT pride march that I ever marched in. I had a good time, and met a bunch of great people. We had folks from every age, race, and sexual orientation show up for the rights of everyone. I'd like to thank everyone who came to support us, the city of Spartanburg, the honorable police force who kept protesters to the side, The Spartanburg Democratic Party and anyone else I might of left out. I will march again next year. I'm a Straight Liberal Democrat, and I don't hate like a Social Conservative Republican.
By: Adam Rankin
