June is Pride Month and Kemptville will be raising flags to celebrate this afternoon.
Fiona McKenney, Communications at Kemptville Pride says Pride is important because it is a time to reflect and celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer history.
For the second year in a row, the rainbow and transgender flags will be flown in Kemptville. The municipality of North Grenville will be raising the flags at 1:00pm today.
McKenney says Pride has been celebrated every year since 1970 after the Stonewall riots in 1969. McKenney adds back in the late 60’s it still wasn’t acceptable to be gay and was illegal in many places and the queer community had enough and they rebelled.
“We just want to be free in our bodies and love who we love. And if we need to come out once a year and, let everybody know that we’re proud and remind them that we’re here, hopefully in the future we won’t even have countries that don’t see everybody as equal.”
McKenney says some ways people can be allies would be to learn the history behind Pride and where people are coming from, embrace and celebrate with the queer community not just once a month at a parade and also stand up for people when they’re not around.
Mayor Nancy Peckford says the municipality is really happy to raise the flags and obviously can’t have the parade and gathering in the park but the Pride group is doing a bunch of stuff on social media to recognize and celebrate the diversity in North Grenville.
“To be able to recognize Pride Month is just another way that we express our caring and kindness for everyone who lives here.”
The flag raising ceremony will be live streamed on Kemptville Pride’s facebook page here.
