RALEIGH -- Carrboro residents Jill and Erin Garrant strolled the rows of vendors on Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh Saturday with their rainbow-caped pug Niles leading the way.
Recently relocated from Washington state, the mother and daughter were there for OutRaleigh, the city’s first street celebration of the local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community.
Jill is transgendered, so they turned out Saturday to see what kind of welcome they would receive from their new community.
“Especially being in the South, I wasn’t sure what we were going to find,” Jill Garrant said. “But people have been very warm.”
Despite a cloudy sky that threatened rain, by lunchtime more than 2,000 people had showed up to peruse OutRaleigh vendors, bounce-houses and main stage performers. Double that number was expected for concerts that continue through the evening.
“Raleigh is growing up a little bit, becoming a major city,” LGBT Center of Raleigh chairman Glen Medders said. “This is just one more hurdle Raleigh is getting beyond.”
Hula hoopers, drag queens, a priest, a rabbi and Mayor Charles Meeker were just a few of those drawing crowds to the main stage on City Plaza throughout the day. From there down past the bounce houses at the corner of Martin Street, couples and families stood in line for face painting and hand-made jewelry, along with booths promoting local LGBT organizations.
Partners Brent Poff and Todd Oliver have lived in Holly Springs for 13 of their 14 years together. The area has always been gay-friendly, the couple said, but this is the largest public gathering they’ve seen.
“It’s not like we all know each other, so it’s nice to see what people are doing,” Poff said.
Not everyone was appreciative. Across Martin Street, about 75 protestors with signs and loudspeakers read Bible verses and passed out tracts to passersby. Tony Hernandez of Wake Forest-based ministry Walking with Him said that at least three churches from as far away as Fayetteville were represented. Their goal was information, not condemnation, Hernandez said.
“They’re trying to indoctrinate people, so we’re trying to tell people what we believe,” Hernandez said. “We’re here to tell them there’s hope and forgiveness for their sin.”
Down Fayetteville Street, associate pastor Larry Holmes of LGBT-friendly Holy Trinity Lutheran Church approached passersby with a different message -- acceptance.
“I have a feeling, if Jesus was here, he would be walking through the festival, not across the street,” Holmes said.
The festival cost about $35,000 to put on, funded by individual and corporate sponsors, LGBT Center executive director Bobby Hilburn said. In the works for more than a year, organizers hope the festival’s family focus will underline their message that the LGBT community is an integral part of Raleigh.
“It shows the community that we’re not strange or peculiar or any of those things some people say we are,” festival volunteer Bill Tautphaeus said. “We’re very ordinary, everyday people with loved ones and jobs of our own.”
Hilburn hopes the festival will become an annual event.
“It says a lot about who we are as a city,” Hilburn said. “We’re here, and we want the same rights and acceptance as everyone else.”
