It’s Pride in Southern Maine, again, and the usual fanfare begins this week.
However, this year marks a few mentionables. First, it was widely rumored, if not downright reported, last year that 2005 would see the last of the Southern Maine Pride Pier Dance, the raison d’etre of Pride in Maine. Turns out, that was bunk. Even though the so-called Pier Dance was held in the Civic Center last year (that the gods in heaven should ever let that catastrophe happen again...), dancing and drinking will once again be under the stars and on the water this year with international DJs Scotty Thomson and Joe Bermudez at the decks.
Everything else (i.e., parade, festival, walking with the one you love) will be business as usual.
Still, for all the sameness, this year’s Pride in Portland is really a big buildup to what Pride enthusiasts consider the Super Bowl of the year: InterPride, a confab of organizers from Pride celebrations all over the world. You guessed it — this year they are convening on Portland the weekend of Halloween, and it should be something akin to the Dungeons and Dragons of the gay set.
But it shouldn’t be that spooky.
According to Southern Maine Pride organizer Mark Holt, InterPride has almost 200 member organizations, representing twenty-five countries from six continents, with 20 established regions around the world
“Southern Maine Pride is a member of region six, known as Northeast Regional Pride, and it’s the most concentrated region of InterPride. There are upwards of 50 Pride organizations serving 11 states,” he says, adding the ball was in motion to get Portland on the list host cities back in 2003 when NERP met at the Holiday Inn By the Bay. Mind you, this is akin to determining a locale for the Olympics, and past cities were, well, not quite as small as ours: Glasgow, Atlanta, Auckland, San Francisco, Montreal, Reykjavik, and Minneapolis are among them.
“It was in 2004, while in Reykjavik, that Southern Maine Pride successfully presented a bid and was awarded the honor of hosting the 25th annual InterPride conference in Portland, Maine. The conference location is decided by a vote from the membership of InterPride and is a true honor. So in 2006, Pride coordinators from around the world will come together in Portland,” Holt says.
Portland is a lot of fun for a little city, but is there enough for an influx of a few hundred gays and lesbians? Club and business owners, you can help: put out your rainbow flags and pump up the house music, and those credit cards will likely come a-callin’.
For more information, visit www.ip2006.org, www.interpride.org, or www.southernmainepride.org.
