Philadelphia is turning up the volume during Pride Weekend, starting with its iconic Pride flag, which is back and bigger than ever.
The massive flag — now stretching to 600 feet — will debut on Friday, May 30 during ride Around the City, a powerful display of LGBTQ+ visibility and unity.
You can catch the flag traveling to iconic locations across the city starting at the Art Museum and ending in the Gayborhood.
The flag will then lead the 2025 Philadelphia Pride March on Sunday, June 1, 2025. This popular march will form at 6th and Walnut at 10:30 a.m. and end in the Gayborhood as well.
All LGBTQ communities and allies are welcome to join the march, with no registration required.
When the march reaches the Gayborhood, organizers said the festival will begin, running from noon to 7 p.m., on Walnut to Pine streets, and Quince to Juniper streets, with other select roads closed around the festival footprint.
This year’s festival will feature more than 200 small businesses and organizations, performers, entertainers, artists, vendors, local bars, food trucks, community organizations, stages and much more.
Philadelphia Pride March and Festival is open to all to attend with no admission, and all food and drink are pay-as-you-go.
Also don’t forget to check out Pride Promenade, a night of music, performances, and community connections at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on Saturday, May 31.
This post is about a case that could be easily overlooked with so much Trump news spewing through the fire hose these days. But Florida’s continued aggression in the culture wars has the potential to affect all of us. So, as here, when a brave plaintiff takes its case to court and wins, it’s news we all need to know about.
On Tuesday, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals decided HM Florida-ORL, LLC v. Sec. of Florida DBPR, a case involving Hamburger Mary’s, a restaurant and bar in Orlando that regularly hosted drag performances, including family-friendly shows. When the Florida legislature passed SB 1438 in 2023, Hamburger Mary’s canceled its family-friendly drag shows and prohibited minors from attending any of its other shows out of fear of losing its business and/or liquor license. As a result, Hamburger Mary’s lost 20% of its bookings.
The new law gave state agencies the power to target LGBTQ+ friendly businesses in two major ways:
It gave the Department of Business and Professional Regulation discretionary authority to fine, revoke liquor licenses, and even shut down establishments.
It made it a crime to admit young people to any performance, exhibit, play, or show that the state deems inappropriate, even if the child’s parents think it is appropriate for their family.
The bill was an effort by conservative politicians, led by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, to impose their beliefs on the entire state. It was a major salvo in the culture wars. Their too-clever-by-half mechanism was to punish private businesses that included or supported the LGBTQ+ community in order to exclude that community from being a public presence in Florida. The law’s language was so vague that businesses had no realistic way of knowing what it prohibited, meaning they had to take the extreme steps Hamburger Mary’s took to pull back their offerings in order to avoid the risk they’d be put out of business.
So, Hamburger Mary’s filed a lawsuit against Florida, its governor, and Secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (FDBPR) Melanie Griffin, seeking a preliminary injunction that would keep the state from enforcing its law while the litigation proceeded. The district court granted the preliminary injunction and the Secretary appealed to the Eleventh Circuit.
The issue in the case involves the First Amendment, as you’ve probably figured out by now. Although the technical legal issue was whether the district court had been correct to grant the injunction, the substantive issue is whether Florida’s Senate Bill 1438 (“The Protection of Children Act”), which prohibits children from attending “adult live performances,” is unconstitutional under the First Amendment, because it is both vaguene and overly broad.
The Eleventh Circuit ruled in Hamburger Mary’s favor, keeping the injunction against enforcement of SB 1438 in place, because the panel believed the law was likely unconstitutional—both too vague for people to understand what they could and couldn’t do to remain in compliance with it and overbroad in its supposed efforts to protect children without regard to their parents’ views.
It’s significant that this decision comes out of the conservative Eleventh Circuit, although admittedly, the composition of this panel, which included both an Obama and a Biden appointee, is unusual. Florida could seek en banc review from the full court, in hopes of getting a more favorable hearing. The decision was 2-1. The third judge on the panel, Senior Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat, was appointed by President Gerald Ford. His objection to the majority’s decision primarily involved a belief that the injunction came too early, and the courts should have demurred until they saw how the state enforced the law in practice.
Among the most interesting points made in the opinion:
The Court found the penalties for violations under SB 1438 “grievous.” The penalties for violations include a $5,000 fine for a first offense or a misdemeanor prison sentence of up to a year.
On protecting First Amendment rights, they noted that “The government cannot shroud rules in foggy language and then blame would-be speakers for their fears of what may lurk in the fog.” Laws like this use vagueness as a means to get private individuals and businesses to obey in advance, staying as far back as possible from the line of conduct the law prohibits in order to avoid the consequences of violating it. In this way, the state restricts far more First Amendment-protected conduct than they are legally entitled to. The panel wasn’t having any of it. It noted the importance of securing “breathing room for free expression” in a case like this.
We’ve seen injunction cases before, so we know that Hamburger Mary’s had to demonstrate it was likely to succeed on the merits of its claim in order to get the injunction. The court underscored the point above when it found that they met this burden, discussing the“chilling effect” laws like this have, and the way they discourage people from speaking their minds, even if their speech doesn’t fall squarely within what the law prohibits. They noted that “[T]he Act’s vagueness…means it is likely to stifle a substantial amount of protected speech,” explaing that at oral argument, the state had been unable to explain, for instance, how to decide what kind of performances would be acceptable for kids of different ages, which the law requires venues to do to avoid penalties. They concluded, “If the Secretary’s attorney can’t articulate the difference, it’s hard to imagine how we could expect performance proprietors to know what the Act means.”
At least for now, the First Amendment is still alive and kicking in Florida. The majority in this case held that the state was trying to “empower those who would limit speech” but that “the First Amendment empowers speakers instead.” “Requiring clarity in speech regulations,” the court wrote, “shields us from the whims of government censors.” This case is important for Floridians and for the LGBTQ+ community. Beyond that, in a time when our rights are under attack, it’s important for all of us.
Their goal is to copy Russia. The goal is to wipe the LGBTQ+ community from society, from the public view. They want to make us illegal like in the most hateful countries or again to be like Russia under Putin. I used to think these people wanted to return to the 1950s but now I think I was wrong. They want to return to the early 1930s when the Nazi party was very active and strong in the US. I kept telling the people who wanted the LGB to let the t go to protect the rest that it was a divide and conquer strategy and that they would come for the rest of us next. And they are doing that. Just being gay or fighting the haters trying to deny gay people rights is a security risk to nation according to them. Hugs
There’s a new “Axis of Evil” in the Trump administration cosmology and it’s not al Qaeda or North Korea. Instead, the preeminent threat to national security, according to the hapless folks at Donald Trump’s personal law firm, is anyone who ever donated money to LGBTQ civil rights organization GLAD. At least that’s the government’s new working theory as it tries to justify its retaliatory executive order against Susman Godfrey.
Had Susman, for example, taken on that GLAD challenge pro bono, the allegation would still be risible, but when the whole argument hinges on the firm generally donating to a prominent non-profit it crosses into professionally embarrassing.
Aside from trying to tag Susman for its charitable contributions, it’s also deeply troubling to suggest that filing a federal lawsuit is a “dangerous effort to undermine the effectiveness of the United States military.” In a rule of law society (I know, I know, but humor me on this idea for the moment), “going to court” isn’t sedition, but the system working as intended. Checks and balances and all that stuff. To call a federal lawsuit an effort to undermine the government, requires adopting the premise that it’s a threat to make sure the government isn’t doing anything illegal. Courts can get the law wrong, but the point is that we encourage people to take grievances to court and not storm federal buildings… you know, the behavior that we traditionally considered a “dangerous effort to undermine” the government. Not so much these days.
There’s no bright line between the GLAD challenge and any other discrimination case brought against the DOD. If the government chooses to contest a suit for any reason, under this standard, it’s an effort to undermine the effectiveness of the military. Frankly, there’s not much keeping the DOJ from expanding this rationale to any other case brought against the government. That would put us a little beyond warnings about a slippery slope and into “that point where Wile E. Coyote hasn’t noticed he’s off the cliff yet.”
Not that GLAD’s challenge would’ve dangerously undermined effectiveness. General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated unequivocally that there isno problem with transgender troops if they meet standards. But as a career soldier, Milley cared more about merit and the ability to do the job. A civilian talk show host more interested in texting war plans to his buddies might have… different priorities.
Though all of this remains far afield of the instant issue: Susman Godfrey, giving money to an organization that has in the past filed a civil rights challenge, is not even in the same universe as a threat to national security.
But you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take, I guess.
I can not understand the kind of hate or anger at different groups to want to cost yourself hundreds of dollars and possible jail time. To damage the books doesn’t erase the people they were written about and it doesn’t change history. It only hurts the library and the community which pays for the library. Hugs
Man accused of checking out books on Jewish, Black, LGBTQ history from Cuyahoga County Public Library and burning them on extremist website
A man checked out 100 books on topics including Jewish history, African American history and LGBTQ education before allegedly burning them in a social media video.
Credit: City of Beachwood, Ohio/Facebook
CLEVELAND — Cuyahoga CountyPublic Library officials, in a police report obtained by 3News, accused a man of checking out 100 books on Jewish history, Black history and LGBTQ education last month before filming a book burning and posting the video on a social media site described by advocates as a hub for white supremacist, neo-Nazi and extremist content.
According to an investigative report filed last week by the Beachwood Police Department, the man went into the Beachwood library branch on Shaker Boulevard and applied for a library card on April 2. He was approved for the card and checked out 50 books by the library’s proper procedure.
A library official told police that the Princeton University Bridging Divides Initiative, a non-partisan research effort that tracks political violence in the United States and monitors suspected hate crimes on social media, notified the library that the man posted a photo to Gab.com of a car trunk full of books. The post came with a caption that referenced “cleansing” the libraries, the official told police. The books in the photo “appeared to match the topics” of the books the man had checked out and also had Cuyahoga County Public Library stickers on them, the police report states.
According to the Anti-Defamation League‘s Center on Extremism, Gab is a platform known for lax content moderation policies that is widely used by “conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, members of militias and influential figures among the alt right.”
On April 10, the man returned to the Beachwood branch and borrowed another 50 books relating to similar topics. The man told a librarian that his son was a member of the LGBTQ community and he was trying to learn more about it. According to the police report, the librarian found the man’s behavior to be “very odd and concerning,” but the man did not make any threats during the encounter.
The Princeton researchers later reached out to the library again, this time saying that the man posted a video they believed depicted him burning all 100 books. The police report again states that the books in the video, a copy of which was obtained by police, “appeared to match the theme and titles” of the books that were checked out from the library. One of the books shown in the video had a CCPL sticker and was an exact match of one of the books the man withdrew, police said.
At the time the police report was filed on May 2, the man was not facing any charges in connection with the allegations. Police said the library staff were calling only to “document the incident,” and that the borrowed books were not yet overdue. The library told police that the man would be sent a bill once the books became overdue, and that the bill would be sent to collections if it was not paid.
The books had a combined total value of $1,700, the report stated.
Police told the library staff that “since a contract was entered and payment would eventually be billed,” the incident was likely a civil matter. The investigative report states the Beachwood city prosecutor would be consulted to determine whether criminal charges are warranted.
The library plans to ban the man from its property in the future. Police told the library staff to contact them for help issuing a trespass warning if the man returned.
Snippets of each. Simply click on the “Read on Substack” links to finish each bit. History is important, and ought to be known. Again, be warned about some language within.
Queer History 104: Martha May Eliot & Ethel Collins Dunham by Wendy🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🌈
Two brilliant women who revolutionized medicine while sharing one bed and one beautiful life Read on Substack
Let me tell you about a love story so powerful it saved millions of children’s lives. Martha May Eliot and Ethel Collins Dunham weren’t just pioneering scientists in a time when women were told to shut up and make babies—they were soulmates who supported each other through nearly six decades of groundbreaking work, homophobia, and institutional sexism. Their love letters tell a story of passion so deep it changed the fucking course of medical history.
When I think about these two women finding each other in the early 1900s—holding hands under tables at medical conferences, stealing kisses between hospital rounds, and building a home together despite the judgment of their peers—I’m not just impressed. I’m goddamn moved to tears. This is the kind of queer history that reminds us we’ve always been here, always been brilliant, always been changing the world even when the world tried to erase us. (snip-MORE)
Queer History 106: Reed Erickson by Wendy🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🌈
The Trans Guy Millionaire with a Pet Leopard Who Bankrolled a Revolution: How one man’s wealth, vision, and complicated legacy shaped transgender rights in America Read on Substack
Holy shit, you need to hear about Reed Erickson—a transgender millionaire who casually took his pet leopard on private planes while funding the movements that would eventually give trans people like himself basic human rights. This isn’t some fictional character from a Ryan Murphy series; this was a real fucking person who lived hard, loved harder, and threw his considerable fortune behind a revolution most people weren’t ready for.
Reed’s story hits me in the gut because it’s so goddamn messy and human. He wasn’t a sanitized LGBTQ+ icon with a perfect narrative arc. He was brilliant, visionary, and deeply flawed—a three-time divorcee who became a drug fugitive while still managing to fundamentally reshape how America understood gender. His life reads like a fever dream, but his impact on transgender rights was dead serious. (snip-MORE)
Queer History 107: The Daughters of Bilitis by Wendy🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🌈
From secret social club to revolutionary force – the women who changed queer history forever Read on Substack
In a world where being yourself could get you arrested, institutionalized, or worse, eight women decided to host a goddamn picnic. That picnic club – the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) – became the first recognized lesbian civil rights organization in the United States and sparked a revolution that would change queer history forever. This isn’t just another boring historical footnote; it’s the story of women who risked everything to carve out space for themselves when no one else would.
Let’s be real – what started as a way for “Sapphics to dance and talk together” (the most lesbian thing I’ve ever heard) evolved into the first nationally published lesbian magazine in America and eventually led to the first gay wedding in California. These women weren’t just creating community; they were planting the seeds of a movement while the rest of society was trying to pretend they didn’t exist. (snip-MORE)
Pride events are very expensive to put on. Most of the cost is security and insurance. The more threats from haters, normally fundamentalist religious people, the more security needed and the more costly insurance is. It is another weapon the haters of the LGBTQ+ community have learned to use to shut down events for people they hate. So much for freedoms these people keep demanding for themselves but want to deny to others. Hugs
Kehlani ‘s planned concert in Central Park next month has been canceled after New York City’s mayor raised security concerns about the R&B star’s performance during Pride month, organizers announced Monday.
The “After Hours” singer had been set to headline a June 26 concert billed as “Pride with Kehlani” at the Manhattan park as part of SummerStage, an annual slate of free concerts at parks across the city.
But organizers, in their announcement, cited concerns from Mayor Eric Adams’ administration about the “controversy surrounding Cornell University’s decision to cancel Kehlani’s concert at the University, as well as security demands in Central Park and throughout the City for other Pride events during that same period.”
Following the April 10 announcement of Kehlani as the original Slope Day headliner, some students and parents criticized the artist’s anti-Israel rhetoric and social media presence. Cornellians for Israel also launched a petition against the selection of Kehlani as the Slope Day headliner that accumulated over 5,000 signatures.
Cornell revoked Kehlani’s invitation to headline Slope Day over what President Michael Kotlikoff labeled “antisemitic, anti-Israel sentiments.”
But the cancellation sparked criticism from student groups about freedom of speech and institutional neutrality. The Community Slope Day Instagram account urged students to “boycott Slope Day,” writing that Kehlani’s “opposition to the genocide in Palestine isn’t hateful” and that the decision was made “without representative input of the student body.”
It doesn’t appear that Kehlani has any affiliation with NYC Pride itself. The cult is celebrating the cancellation. The recent single below has 32 million views on YouTube.
Singer Kehlani was scheduled to perform at Cornell University, but their show was canceled because of their support for Palestine. The university framed their activism as antisemitic. This is their response: pic.twitter.com/K1iA207v89
Community Slope Day, organized in reaction to news of Kehlani’s cancelation, will feature local, underground and independent artists at Stone-Bend Farm, in an event that will run concurrent to the annual University music festival.https://t.co/olfbv9tyZF
Kehlani, a vocal critic of Israel, had been scheduled to perform in June as part of Pride festivities. Two weeks ago, Cornell dropped a plan to have her headline a concert. https://t.co/OCaNu9jtG4
— New York Times Music (@nytimesmusic) May 7, 2025
Dueling Substacks about the new Pope, one from Charlotte Clymer, one from The Alt Media (language alert); both inoffensively readable by those who frequent here. Well, the language thing maybe. Snippets, not full pieces.
An American for Pope and a Great Choice by Charlotte Clymer
Chicago native Robert Francis Prevost has just been elected the 267th Bishop of Rome, the head of the Catholic Church, taking the name Leo XIV.
He was only made a cardinal in 2023 and was serving as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, or overseeing the selection of new bishops. Prior to that was a long pastoral career in Peru. He speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese, and can read Latin and German.
Goodness gracious, y’all, I could not have been more wrong in my prediction for the new pope. I never thought the cardinal electors would select an American. To say I’m stunned would be an understatement.
However, for the record, I did humor his chances in my prediction:
For example, there’s a (very unlikely) scenario in which someone like Cardinal Robert Prevost is elected: a compromise candidate who’s broadly considered safe and palatable between both ends of the ideological spectrum. But there are other cardinals that fit this and Prevost could be in 20+ years.
Okay, so, here are my initial thoughts:
This is a great choice, and I’m quite happy.
Folks need to understand that any choice for the new pope was going to be nominally anti-LGBTQ in a number of ways. What’s important is compassion and openness toward LGBTQ folks, and I’m optimistic that Pope Leo XIV will continue that direction pursued by Pope Francis. (snip-MORE)
We might have that second question wrong. But thanks to twitter, we know the answer to the first one. And while we doubt the new pope really hates Vance, it’s nice to know he at least disagrees with the ass-kissing couch-fuck.
Before he became Pope Leo XIV on Thursday, Robert Prevost was on twitter. And it was there that he wrote “JD Vance is wrong,” posting a story that was a rebuke of Vance’s hateful beliefs. It was on twitter that he suggested he wants to battle climate change and believes that Black lives matter and subtweeted about Trump laughing at Kilmar Garcia. Thanks to twitter, we know the new pope is nothing like the new president. https://embed.bsky.app/embed/did:plc:5xeqzwhqcwnczcb62wv3da7o/app.bsky.feed.post/3loohb33sps2i?id=5706215191635626
The new pope is an American. And there’s nothing more American than thinking JD Vance is a douchebag. (snip-MORE, and you can see the bluesky bit on the page)
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Democratic controlled cities of Salt Lake City and Boise adopted new city flags this week showing support for LGBTQ+ people in defiance of their states’ Republican-controlled Legislatures, which have banned traditional rainbow pride flags at schools and government buildings.
The newly adopted city flags are displayed at the Salt Lake City and County building showing support for LGBTQ+ in defiance of their state’s Republican controlled Legislature, Wednesday, May 7, 2025, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Melissa Majchrzak)
Utah’s capital of Salt Lake City created new flag designs while Boise, the capital of Idaho, made the traditional pride flag one of its official city flags. The move in Utah came hours before a ban on unsanctioned flag displays took effect Wednesday.
The cities’ mayors spoke Tuesday morning to discuss their individual plans and offer each other support, said Andrew Wittenberg, a spokesperson for Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall’s office.
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall smiles as she attends the IOC session in Paris, July 24, 2024. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)Mayor Lauren McLean listens during a news conference at the Linen Building in Boise, Idaho, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Kyle Green, File)
Scottie's Playtime 