{"id":32903,"date":"2023-06-17T18:21:38","date_gmt":"2023-06-17T22:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=32903"},"modified":"2023-06-17T18:21:43","modified_gmt":"2023-06-17T22:21:43","slug":"polk-pride-celebrates-pride-in-the-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/06\/17\/polk-pride-celebrates-pride-in-the-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk Pride celebrates Pride in the Park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pride festivities went forward with enthusiasm in Lakeland despite Polk County Commission declining to declare June as Pride Month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thousands of people gathered for Polk Pride in the Park Saturday, a large LGBTQ+ pride festival designed for the whole family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI grew up in Lakeland and it\u2019s changed a lot,\u201d said Polk Pride president Scott Guira. \u201cMore and more people are accepting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cWe\u2019ve become an inclusive community,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking through the park, you could find colorful pride flags, a bounce house, and a tent for diversity healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverybody is welcome,\u201d Diversity Healthcare Owner Clay Reedy. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to feel afraid to have healthcare.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Polk County League of Women Voters was also on-site, encouraging everyone to register to vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pride celebrations continue into Saturday evening in Polk County with “Pride After Dark.”<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The event featured live music, various booths and food trucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s Polk Pride events are not without controversy. The Polk County Commission declined to declare June as Pride Month for the first time in years, with some comments made throughout the decision process drawing criticism. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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County Commissioner Neil Combee<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

“The truth of the matter is this issue gets more divisive by the day,” said County Commissioner Neil Combee. “I want to be on the record, as I said, for my grandkids, saying I can\u2019t go along with men saying they are pregnant.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I think their comments were based in ignorance,” said Guira, when asked to respond to the commission’s comments. “They didn\u2019t really seek to understand the people they were talking about.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guira said through the month of events that Polk Pride has organized, they’re “responding to ignorance” with pride. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’re responding with pride. It\u2019s exciting when you look around the park and you see that, whether they want to say it or not, we are here and we are loud,” said Guira.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pride festivities went forward with enthusiasm in Lakeland despite Polk County Commission declining to declare June as Pride Month. Thousands of people gathered for Polk Pride in the Park Saturday,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[5249],"class_list":["post-32903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-polk-pride-celebrates-pride-in-the-park"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32907,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32903\/revisions\/32907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}