2016 Pride Parade and Festival, Scheduled for August 13, Cancelled

Pride

In a vague statement that raised more questions than it answered, Todd Saporito, president/CEO of Cleveland Pride, Inc., announced that his year’s Pride Parade and Festival, scheduled for Sat 8/13, had been cancelled.

“We have been entrusted by our community to create a secure parade and festival environment for our LGBTQ brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, friends and allies,” he said in the release announcing the cancellation. “Because of the changing social climate, Cleveland Pride did not have enough time to engage in the development of awareness programs and training that we believe is critical in today’s environment. Therefore, we regretfully cancelled our 28th annual parade, rally and festival this year.”

In addition to moving the festival from its former location in Voinovich Park to Mall C, it switched from its usual late June date to August due to preparations for the Republican National Convention. This comes on the heels of a weather-related change last year, when the June 27 festival (which fell on the day after the Supreme Court announced in its Obergefell vs. Hodges decision that same-sex marriage was a universal right in the U.S.) was cancelled at the last minute due to a storm and later took place in August.

The press release went on to say “The planning team’s next steps will be to refund monies to vendors, sponsors and service providers. A team of board members and lead volunteers will initiate discussion for town hall meetings to further map out a program where we and other LGBT community partners, will be able to start crafting awareness and training programs, that will be beneficial on a day-to-day basis as well as prepared for our celebration in 2017.”

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