Pride is upon us. It’s here. And I’m ready to flap my wings and tweet and twitter in celebration of the LGBTQ-plus community during their month, June!
I’m curious what will happen at the Santa Maria City Council meeting tonight—June 3—as proclaiming Pride Month in June is on the agenda. Will the emboldened haters out there show up to “speak out”?
I hope not.
In Solvang, I haven’t heard a disgruntled peep out of the constituents who so malevolently spoke out against Pride banners on streetlights in 2023 while claiming they weren’t ill-intentioned and loved everybody. The Solvang City Council claimed that hanging the banners went against the city’s Danish roots.
Turns out, Copenhagen’s lord mayor (an actual Danish person from Denmark) had something to say about that!
However, I haven’t seen any proposals to proclaim June Pride Month in Solvang, either. So, I’m a little suspicious. Hopefully other cities won’t follow Morro Bay’s lead in attempting (pretending?) to stay out of the political fray over Pride and what it represents.
Really, Pride is about celebrating several communities that have overcome so much—communities once criminalized by law enforcement, communities that are still battling disenfranchisement and erasure.
All we really need to do is look to Arroyo Grande High School to see how important it is to support the underrepresented populations in our midst. It’s crazy that one trans female at a school can inspire so much hatred. She needs all the support we can give her. That way, others know that it’s OK to be who they are as well.
As a community, we can do better. And some of us are.
Kudos to all the wineries out there supporting Pride Month and LGBTQ-plus nonprofits, wineries like Future Perfect.
“Making sure everyone feels safe and inspired enough to be their shiniest, brightest self is the culture we carry at Future Perfect,” owner and winemaker Sunny Doench Stricker said.
The winery’s 100 percent grenache Pride rosé’s proceeds all go to benefit Santa Ynez Valley Pride, which is hosting a Pride parade and festival in Solvang on June 14.
Some SYV Pride members attended Copenhagen’s Pride festivities in 2023 and learned a lot about what a celebration like that can do for the community as a whole and what it means for its individual members.
The anti-LGBTQ rhetoric that continues its drumbeat here in the U.S.—a rhythm our president unfortunately has tuned into and continues to increase—ripples out into the world.
“It’s certainly affirmed that Pride is one of our greatest tools in fulfilling our mission of creating a safe, supportive, and empowering home for LGBTQ residents in the valley,” SYV Pride board President Lauren Lastra said at the time. “I think in general Pride celebrations are so important for our youth and allies to feel affirmed in their identities, to feel seen, to have a sense of belonging—outside of Pride or queer-friendly spaces, it’s hard to find.
“Being a part of the majority for a few hours, that is really important, especially in your formative years.”
The Canary is ready to paint the Central Coast rainbow. Send colors to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 5-15, 2025.