Jun. 7—COEUR D’ALENE — Five years ago, Brenda Pratt and Bobbi Tidwell kept their wedding ceremony small, with only family members in attendance, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On a warm Saturday, with colorful letters forming “LOVE WINS” staked in the grass in front of the Rotary Lakeside Bandshell, the Moses Lake couple renewed vows as dozens of strangers who turned out for Pride in the Park looked on.
“If we can touch one person who is scared to come out or one person who wants to marry the love of their life, if we can touch somebody and let them know it’s OK and that the community supports them wherever they are, that’s our whole purpose of doing it on stage,” Pratt said.
Jan Shannon, a licensed wedding officiant and friend of the couple, officiated the ceremony.
Shannon is a former pastor who has taken the Pride in the Park stage in recent years, inviting other church leaders to join her side. She was kicked out of a small denomination where she was a minister in 2006 after she announced she was gay.
Pratt, 55, said she called Shannon about renewing her vows with Tidwell, 59. Shannon suggested they pronounce their love on stage at Saturday’s event.
“When she brought it to our attention, at first I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to do that, this is very personal,’ ” Pratt said. “And then I realized it was so much bigger than us.”
Pratt thanked the Coeur d’Alene community for letting them “grandstand” in front of them and for its love and support.
Meanwhile, people decked out in rainbow-colored clothing, stickers and other attire meandered through the park, stopping to check out vendors, under the shade of the tall trees.
Sarah Lynch, executive director of North Idaho Pride Alliance, which hosted the event, said the number of vendors who signed up for the ninth annual Pride in the Park increased by 20% over last year.
“We’re really excited to see the outpouring of support from the community, the local businesses who want to showcase their support for pride,” Lynch said.
She said the event has grown each year since the pandemic, which can be said for many events in the region which had attendance numbers dwindle post-pandemic but are increasing again. She also attributed the festival’s success to the community responding to negative attention the city’s received related to LGBTQ+ matters.
In 2022, police pulled over a U-Haul on Northwest Boulevard and arrested 31 Patriot Front members suspected of conspiring to disrupt Pride in the Park. The men came from across the country, including Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Utah, and were equipped with riot gear, smoke grenades and other items, police said.
Several Coeur d’Alene police officers stood on the perimeter of the festival to ensure safety on Saturday. Some people who opposed the event held signs near the festival.
“This is a community stepping up and coming forward and saying we embrace our LGBT neighbors, family members, co-workers,” Lynch said.
She said LGBTQ+ people feel better when they see others at the event who support them for being their authentic selves.
“That’s really what Pride is all about,” Lynch said. “I’ve said this every year, that Pride saves lives. I think that that act of coming together and being visible and making resources available and accessible for free for folks is super empowering and life giving.”
Just as Shannon has done in the past, Matthew L. Erickson, pastor at Calvary Lutheran Church in Post Falls, and other church leaders from Coeur d’Alene and Spokane took the stage during opening ceremonies at the festival. Erickson, who attended the past four pride festivals at the park, read a confession.
“As ordained clergy and Christian siblings within Jesus’ church, we confess that we, our congregations, our denominations and the earthly church as a whole have not loved our siblings in and around the LGBTQ+ community in the ways Jesus has commanded us to love,” Erickson read. “In mistreating our queer siblings, we have mistreated God’s own self, and broken Jesus’ heart.”
He said church leaders are “still learning how to live out Christ’s love.”
“There are no excuses for the damage that has wrongly been done in the name of Jesus, and while we long for a day when we will no longer inflict such injuries, we know that there is much work to be done,” Erickson read. “We recognize that, despite our best efforts, we will at times continue to miss the mark. Nonetheless, we will seek to live out Jesus’ love among all people and especially the LGBTQ+ community, and we humbly ask that we might be forgiven by those we have wounded, and by God.”
Erickson and his church occupied one of the many tables at the festival. There, Erickson told The Spokesman-Review, his church gets some “pushback” for its progressive beliefs.
“There are lots of people that claim to be speaking on behalf of Jesus that tell people that they can’t be loved or that they’re unlovable because of who they love, and I think that’s a lie,” Erickson said. “I think that’s not in line with what Jesus teaches, it’s not in line with the scriptural witness … God loves you just exactly the way you are.”
Erickson, who wore a blue shirt that said “THIS PASTOR LOVES YOU” with “PASTOR” in rainbow colors, said more churches across the country are starting to accept the LGBTQ+ community, but in North Idaho, that’s not the case. He said the same church leaders have attended Pride in the Park in recent years, adding no new churches appeared to have come out to the festival.
“There have been other churches that have become more outspoken in their rhetoric that is hurtful toward the queer community,” Erickson said. “And so, yeah, I think we’re going the wrong direction in North Idaho.”
Nationally, new pride festivals are popping up in rural communities, he said.
“Nationwide, more and more people are understanding that the rhetoric of the church and some of the traditional views of the church aren’t as grounded in scripture as people have claimed them to be,” Erickson said.
Lynch said LGBTQ+ folks are interwoven into the fabric of society.
“I think that that is what this is about is that the community, all of our allies are coming out and saying we embrace our queer neighbors,” she said.