As the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) continues to track 515 anti-LGBTQ bills across the U.S., many communities, including Belmont, are showing their solidarity during Pride Month this June.
The Belmont Pride Parade will take place on Saturday, June 15. Community members are invited to gather at the Town Green (404 Concord Ave.) starting at 12:45 p.m. before the event steps off at 1 p.m. The event will mark the town’s fourth annual Pride march and celebration.
“It’s a counterforce” to the numerous efforts across the nation targeting gay rights, said Gladys Unger, a member of the Belmont LGBTQ+ Alliance. “It’s really a very festive kind of event.”
Even before the town had its own parade, a group of residents marched in Boston’s parade as “Pride in Belmont,” she said.
However, like many other cities during the COVID-19 pandemic, Boston canceled the yearly celebration from 2020 to 2022, in part due to health concerns.
By 2021, “Some of us [in the Alliance] said, ‘Well, the parade is an outside event,’” so why not hold one ourselves? Unger said members figured if participants spaced themselves out and took other precautions, Belmont could successfully hold its own celebration.
She recalled that perhaps 50 people participated in the first parade.
“It was really nice – the reception that we got from Belmont. … Everyone was very positive,” Unger said. “I think each year it’s gotten bigger,” although the route now is shorter.
She said there was and will be a police presence at the parade, though there were no protests or controversies in previous years.
The event is run entirely by volunteers. Although the parade will be held outside, rain or shine, if there are any downpours, the celebration afterward will take place inside the First Church in Belmont Unitarian Universalist.
At that time there will be food available, and several organizations will set up tables.
The Belmont High School Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) will hold a bake sale fundraiser, with profits going to The Trevor Project, a “suicide prevention and crisis intervention nonprofit organization for LGBTQ+ young people,” according to its website.
The library will offer an array of LGBTQ+ books that can be checked out immediately and Boston PFLAG, an advocacy nonprofit, also will have a table.
“[The parade is] one of the most uplifting [Belmont events] because everyone is so upbeat and happy and proud,” Unger said.
