Taylor Restricts Two Holiday Parades After Church Organization Excludes LGBTQ Groups

Drag performers have been in the news recently, in Taylor, in northeast Austin. And there seems to be a long story behind the entire occurrence. Every year, the church organizes a march in the town. However, this time, the organization specifically excluded LGBTQ groups.

Taylor Area Ministerial Alliance has excluded gay and non-traditional from the customary march in December. This comes at a time when there is a lot of hatred around the LGBTQ community. Thus, the city has been forced to choose to organize separate holiday parades.

Inclusivity – Still A Distant Dream

Taylor Communications, in a recent interaction, has said that no one could exclude specific groups from a common city event, irrespective of gender orientation. The city has been working towards gender sensitization, and equity for a long time. And it doesn’t appear that anything is getting better.

The whole fiasco started sometime in the previous year when the board was taking decisions against certain things that took place in the 2021 parade. The bone of contention happened to be the participation of a local LGBTQ group called Taylor Pride. The organization wants to allow only conventional people to participate in the event, according to sources.

Thus, the church organization has amended its bill towards the exclusion of LGBTQs. TAMA even said sorry to many of its patrons back in 2021 after some part of the society was deeply offended due to the participation of non-traditional groups. TAMA went on to say in the apology, that it issued on social media, that they were unaware that drag queens would also be there at the event.

The same struck all the wrong chords of the religious organization. To this, the representative from Taylor Pride said that the drag queens were very much a part of their group. Moreover, they, in no way, had broken any of the rules that were laid down by TAMA. The board president for Taylor Pride also said that the drag queens were dressed quite appropriately. The church organization has not been available for comment ever since.

Two Parades To Be Held in Taylor This December

After TAMA or Taylor Area Ministerial Alliance failed to respond, the city council tried to contact them on the matter, but without results. No amount of pressure from the authorities or any other quarter has been able to make the organization change its stance.

While everyone is trying to make diversity a focal point for one and all, TAMA seemed to be going the other way. TAMA has supposedly been pretty straightforward in saying that they will not be including LGBTQ groups. The organization has hit out at the belief that the LGBTQ community did not fit the normal code of traditions.

For the unversed, the parade will be held on December 3, 2022. The TAMA will hold its parade after the city hosts its own, with the LGBTQ. In the meanwhile, the city will be taking care of all the security and traffic controls, just like TAMA does every year.

No one was available for comment if the city authorities and Taylor Area Ministerial Alliance have gone their separate ways. It has become really important to take care of the security aspect due to the recent events in the US. In recent times, many hate crimes have come forth, which have led to the death of many LGBTQ people. The shootout at Club Q in Colorado Springs happens to be one of them.

As of now, the authorities are keeping their fingers crossed. No one has heard of any planned protests as of date, but no one can say for sure, that there will be no sudden explosion of hate events.

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