PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

On Saturday, June 18, Pittsburgh's annual PrideFest began with a march Downtown which saw participation from GLBT advocacy groups, Drag queens, progressive churches, and more. The festival continued for several hours in River Front park. But while some march participants touted signs and sang songs calling for "equal rights" others felt that this year's theme of "equal rights: no more no less" falls short of their ultimate goals for the queer movement.

About 60 members and supporters of RESYST, a radical queer project of the Thomas Merton Center, descended on the 2005 PrideFest to insert a more radical queer presence in the form of a colorful pink and black bloc, complete with radical cheerleaders, signs, banners, drums, enthusiastic chanting, and a Rick Santorum puppet, which was later burned. Resyst members feel that the annual Pride Parade and Festival has become the epitome of the corporatization and maintstreaming of LGBT culture and identity.

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