Protestors don't faze Michigan Pride attendees

LANSING – As Kaye McDuffie and Carlton Evans, her husband of 30 years, watched from the sidelines of the Michigan Pride march to the State Capitol in Lansing, a drag queen strutting her white angel wings through the street caught their eye. And then McDuffie had a vision of her husband dolled up in the same costume.
"Carl, you'd look good in those feathers," she told him with her arm wrapped around his waist. But he couldn't handle the stilettos. "He doesn't have that level of coordination," she said, laughing.
June 24 marked the couple's 12th year at Michigan Pride, where about 15,000 descended on downtown Lansing along with a handful of protestors, but McDuffie and Evans weren't having that.
"I feel sorry for them," Evans said. "Christ is about love and acceptance … and they're just the opposite."
McDuffie said, "It's important as an African-American traditional family to show solidarity toward equality for all of us."
As LGBT community members paraded through the streets chanting, "we're here, we're queer," protestors followed holding up signs with statements like, "Homosexuality: always lust, never love."
"We came out here to show them that there is a way out of it," said protestor Rebecca Smith, 23. "They need to ask Jesus to forgive them for their sins."
Though the protestors shouted objections through megaphones, they couldn't drown out the crowd, who came together to sing "Jesus Loves Me" with the Great Lakes Pride Band.
"It's their hell, they can burn in it," said Gary Cendrowski of Royal Oak. As a video producer for N-Media, 46-year-old Cendrowski filmed the event and said, "It makes me think I need to put more educational programming out there for the general public about gays and lesbians."
At the Capitol building, protestors were ordered to stay on the sidewalk. The Peace Team and police officers helped ward off altercations while CARE's Penny Gardner spoke to legions of people about protecting children in LGBT families and promoted the power to vote.
"I can't tell you how overwhelming it is to see each and every one of you here," Gardner said.
Before the march to the Capitol, people congregated in Riverfront Park, where vendors sold rainbow-colored merchandise and promoted their organizations, and some young men and women painted Pride posters with political messages.
Martin Contreras and Keith Orr, owners of /aut/ Bar and Common Language in Ann Arbor, brought part of their bookstore to Lansing.
"I sort of look at the Lansing one as the more important of the two," Contreras said, referring to Motor City Pride, which was held in Ferndale earlier this month. "I think everyone should experience some of those speeches and marches on the Capitol steps."
Human Rights Campaign volunteer Jason Lacy, who's attended all the state's Pride events this year, agreed that the March is an important part of Michigan Pride, but felt put-off by attendees.
"Motor City Pride is more close-knit," he said. "This is more spread out … It seems like [at Motor City Pride] everyone knows each other more, are more comfortable with each other, where here there are just so many people that everyone is off doing their own thing."
For Pride parade virgins Brooke Tarrant and Kayleigh Sheehan of Wixom, the afternoon became a celebration of love as they married, like 400 other people, in front of the Capitol. "Every day is better than the last," Tarrant said as she leaned in and locked lips with Sheehan.
Jason Bensinger, who sheltered his tiny pooch from the scorching sun, thought Motor City Pride was smaller when he went for the first time earlier this month. "I've been coming here [to Michigan Pride] forever now," he said. "I think it's a lot better. It's a bigger event, people wise and booth wise."
The event, even if it appeared larger to some than Motor City, drew about one-third the number at Motor City Pride. "I thought the turnout was great," said Kevin Lambrix, Michigan Pride senior co-chair. "It seems like we're getting a few more people every year."