Though Santa Rosa and other communities in Sonoma county have already hosted Pride events, in Healdsburg all the action is this coming weekend, including a Pride “Movie Night” and a Rainbow Runway show at the Pavilion, followed by a “Tea Dance” for “music, movement, and connection.”
The rainbow colors of the Pride Flag rose above City Hall last Monday afternoon, June 1, to inaugurate Pride Month in Healdsburg. The City Council was there, although its regular meeting did not begin until 6pm, and although an official Proclamation was drafted and signed by Mayor Chris Herrod, the speakers at the flag-raising ceremony ran out the clock. There was no time to get to the reading of the Proclamation, there or in the meeting, but it’s official anyway: June is “LGBTQIA2S+ Pride Month” in Healdsburg.
June 1 speakers celebrated Healdsburg’s historic role in defeating the Briggs Initiative, a statewide proposition in 1978 that would have banned gay teachers and even supporters of lesbian and gay rights from working in public schools. Several of them were teachers, who 50 years ago played a part in supporting Larry Berner while opposing Prop 6.
Berner, a second grade teacher at Fitch Mountain Elementary, was “outed” as a gay man but did not shirk from that identity. In fact, he embraced it and became a spokesman for the No On 6 forces. He sought out State Sen. John Briggs, who led the effort to pass Prop 6, for a public debate. It was an occasion that, said former teacher Judy Velasques, helped turn the tide against the ballot measures statewide (along with opposition from Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and then-President Jimmy Carter)…