St. Cloud prevents Pride Month proclamation on Pulse anniversary through blanket ‘pause'

Yahoo

3 days ago

Weeks before St. Cloud was set to declare Pride Month for only the second time in its history, council members decided to pause all proclamations and vote on a new process for considering them — a decision set to take place June 12, the nine-year anniversary of the shooting at Pulse.
While council members didn't explicitly say Pride month is the reason behind the pause, the city's first openly gay council member said it was the clear target.
'The proclamation will not be issued,' said Deputy Mayor Shawn Fletcher, the city's first openly gay council member. 'To take the time to basically say you're not valued or worthy enough to be a resident of the city is just unbelievable.'
Issuing proclamations — an official recognition of a person, group, cause or event — is a common endeavor for elected boards across Florida and around the country. Most are non-controversial, but some spark political division, though it rarely leads to the contortions now occurring in St. Cloud.
The Osceola County city of 60,000 is also pausing other proclamations for June, including some that would have been expected to win quick approval, such as Home Ownership Month and Fatherhood Awareness Month.
The city council will discuss its policy on proclamations at its June 12 meeting, its last for the month, which effectively nixes the ability to declare June as Pride month in St. Cloud.
June is recognized as Pride month in many communities around the country in recognition of the Stonewall Uprising in New York in 1969, a protest considered a turning point for gay rights in the U.S. In Central Florida, June has even deeper meaning for the local community because of the 2016 massacre at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, a haven for the LGBTQ community, in which 49 people were killed.
But in St. Cloud, council member Kolby Urban proposed a moratorium on proclamations during a May 20 workshop meeting, saying some may be 'controversial' and the current policy doesn't allow enough time for review.
The policy currently states that proposed proclamations are placed on the next city council meeting agenda, meaning they can quickly be voted on. But the council unanimously agreed to look at establishing a longer review process before proclamations come up for a vote at a meeting.
'There are certain issues that our city has nothing to do with, they're state and federal issues,' Urban said at the meeting. 'It's controversy that the city doesn't need.'
The pause comes amid years of Florida legislation that aimed to stifle pride celebrations and sparked fear in LGBTQ communities.
In 2023, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the Protection of Children Act that prohibited minors from viewing 'sexually explicit performances,' a provision aimed at drag shows, and also punished businesses who knowingly allowed children at these events. The legislation prompted many cities across the state to cancel Pride celebrations — including St. Cloud's very first.
St. Cloud's LGBTQ pride festival held its inaugural celebration in 2022. But the following year, amid fear of the legislation, it was cancelled. It returned in 2024 with a rebranded name and more community support as Proud in the Cloud.
The festival's founder, Kristina Bozanich, wrote a letter on May 26 to the city council following the decision to pause all proclamations expressing her 'profound disappointment and concern.'
'This action sends a deeply troubling message to the LGBTQ+ residents of St. Cloud and undermines the progress our city has made towards inclusivity in just the past few years,' Bozanich said in the letter. 'Last year's Pride Proclamation was a significant moment for our community, being a clear demonstration of respect, support, and commitment from our city's leadership.'
Fletcher introduced the city's 2024 Pride month declaration with unanimous support, and this year he thought it would be the same. But at the first city council meeting on May 27 after the pause on proclamations, Fletcher asked other council members to approve the Pride month proclamation already pending for June 12. It was met with silence.
'I'll take that as a no,' Fletcher said at the meeting.
In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Fletcher said the pause forces the pride proclamation to be dropped as the June 12 meeting is the final one for the month. The city had already revisited the policy last year in May, a factor Fletcher said is troubling.
'We've already went through the policy and a lot went into that to make sure it was done the right way,' Fletcher said. 'So now to go back and look at it again at the same time seems like there could potentially be a pattern.'
St. Cloud isn't the only governing agency with proclamation issues.
In June 2023 in nearby Polk County, commissioners rejected the proclamation declaring Pride month on their agenda.
In 2023, an Orange County School Board meeting got heated when a board member blasted the annual proclamation declaring October as 'LGBTQ+ Awareness and History' month. It was ultimately approved that year and again in 2024.
Last year, the school board changed it' proclamation policy to label them 'celebrations/observations' instead, all of which will be placed on the board agenda in August of each year, Orange Schools spokesperson Michael Ollendorff wrote in an email.
LGBTQ+ Awareness and History month will be on the August agenda for approval for the 2025-2026 school year.
Osceola County, where St. Cloud is located, is set to vote on declaring June Pride month at its upcoming June 2 commission meeting.