Rain doesn't dampen Durham's Pride Festival
DURHAM (WTVD) -- The annual Pride Festival always attracts a large crowd to Durham. That tradition continued on Saturday, despite intermittent showers.
Cosmetology student Micah Moses and some of his friends came dressed in bright colors and wearing big smiles.
"I'm really excited and really happy to be around like-minded people," he told ABC11.
The Pride Parade featured colorful floats, with eye catching, artistic decorations like a giant wig created by a classmate of Moses.
"It's really cool," she said, smiling. "It's like a rainbow, gonna be really high. It's like a top hat thing, like Dr. Seuss."
The celebration comes as LGBT issues continue to be at the forefront of national news. Just Friday, Rowan County, Kentucky clerk and same sex-marriage opponent Kim Davis announced she's switching parties from the Democrats to the Republican because she feels abandoned by Democrats in her crusade against same-sex marriage.
Davis cites her Christian faith as the reason she won't sign licenses for same-sex couples.
But Terry Schneider's not buying that.
"We have religious freedom in this country. It's the freedom to practice your religion but not to force it on others. She's forcing her religion on other people," said Schneider.
He told us he participated in one of the earliest actions against a celebrity who criticized gays nearly 40 years ago.
"The Anita Bryant issue started in Chapel Hill, 1976," he said. "When the students there did the first Southeastern Gay Conference."
Schneider smiled as he watched parade participants line up Saturday but admitted: "I get emotional at times. I do it because we need to. It's not over!"
