View source for Las Vegas' first Gay Pride Celebration

'''Las Vegas' First Gay Pride'''

[[Category:Las Vegas, Nevada]]
[[Category:Gay Pride]]
[[Category:1980s]]

(c)Dennis McBride, 2009

== Pride '83 ==
[[Image:LVSun_05071983.jpg|thumb|right|200px|''Las Vegas Sun'': LV homosexuals urged to band together]]
While Gay Pride celebrations commemorating the Stonewall Riots had been going on around the country since 1970, Las Vegas didn’t establish its Gay Pride celebration until 1983. Sponsored by the Gay Academic Union [GAU] of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas [UNLV], the Metropolitan Community Church, and Nevadans for Human Rights, Gay Pride 1983 was a week-long series of events May 6-14 hosted at the university and at various bars around Las Vegas. 

[[Image:NevadaGayTimes_0583.jpg|thumb|right|200px|''Nevada Gay Times'': First Vegas Gay Pride Week Set]]The event opened on May 6 with a day of seminars, workshops, and lectures in the Fireside Lounge of the Moyer Student Union at the university, featuring such speakers as UNLV professors Donald Carns and Vern Mattson, activists Gudrun Fonfa and Terry Wilsey, attorney Kevin Kelly, Dr. Walt Herron, and David Goodstein, publisher of the ''Advocate'' who was the keynote speaker at the First Annual Gay Pride Banquet and Awards the following night.<ref name="ref1">''Nevada Gay Times'' 5-83, 1; ''Nevada Gay Times'' 6-83, 1, 7, 8; ''Nevada Gay Times'' 7-83, 11; ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' 5.7.83, 2C; ''Las Vegas Sun'' 5.7.83, 31; ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' 5.16.83, 6B; McBride journals 5.10.83, 5.11.83; Christie Young journals 5.6.83, 5.7.83</ref>


[[Image:LVSun_05071983_2.jpg|thumb|left|200px|''Las Vegas Sun'': Gays Need Legal Protection]]Pride ’83 was Las Vegas’s first high-profile city-wide gay event; GAU founder Will Collins and straight activist Christie Young made several appearances on local television and radio programs to promote it.<ref name="ref2">''Take Ten'', 4.28.83; ''Day Break'', 4.30.83</ref> These public appearances raised interesting issues not only about how the Las Vegas media dealt with the "gay thing," but about the Las Vegas gay community's own closeted nature. Will and Christie went on-air because they didn't "look gay," would be "more acceptable in the mass media," and because all the lesbians who belonged to GAU "were just too deep in the closet." People were also surprised Will and Christie were willing to use their own names publicly.<ref name="ref3">Christie Young interview; Young journals 4.25.83, 4.28.83, 4.29.83, 5.2.83, 5.4.83, 5.5.83</ref>


The Gay Pride Banquet and Awards drew 200 people, and throughout the following week Las Vegas bars hosted special events to celebrate Gay Pride: on May 9 blues singer Loretta Holloway and renowned impersonator Kenny Kerr gave a show at the Gipsy nightclub, while the Garage, the Backdoor, the Buffalo, and Gelo's all sponsored barbecues, beer busts, and swim parties at Lake Mead. One more event which had been scheduled for May but postponed till June 18 was Las Vegas's first Gay Pride dance held in the ballroom at UNLV's student union.<ref name="ref4">''Nevada Gay Times'' 6-83, 1, 7; Will Collins interview; Mike Loewy interview; Young; Young journals 6.4.83, 6.10.83, 6.14.83</ref>


== Pride '84 ==
[[Image:Will_Collins_Pridecofounder_1984.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Will Collins, Las Vegas Gay Pride co-founder]]
With the success of Gay Pride 1983 behind it, the GAU planned the 1984 celebration in a more formal way through Las Vegas's first Gay Pride organization, the Lambda Pride Coalition [LPC]. GAU founder Will Collins headed Lambda Pride with activist Gudrun Fonfa. Others involved with LPC included Christie Young, Ron Lawrence, Mario Lopez-Gutierrez, Mike Loewy, Ron Guthrie--director of the Las Vegas gay and lesbian choir, Voices--while Terry Wilsey served as the organization's media contact. In October 1983 four LPC members attended the Second Annual Gay Pride Coordinators Conference in San Diego, and brought back to Las Vegas the Pride theme for the next year: "Unity and More in '84." Las Vegas was also chosen to hold the Southwest Region's first Pride Event June 2-9, 1984.<ref name="ref5">''Nevada Gay Times'' 10-83, 11; ''Nevada Gay Times'' 11-83, 1; ''Nevada Gay Times'' 4-84, 6; ''Nevada Gay Times'' 3-85, 1, 4; Collins; Young; Loewy; Rick May interview; Young journals 11.5.83</ref>


Las Vegas began its 1984 Pride celebration with a lecture on January 19 by Tanya Corman, Director of Field Associates for the Gay Rights National Lobby, sponsored by Nevadans for Human Rights, the ACLU, and the lesbian Rural Nevada NOW. There were fundraisers on January 24 and 25 in which gay singing duo Romanovsky & Phillips made their Las Vegas debut, while the Second Annual Human Rights Seminar at UNLV May 3-6 featured Dr. Evelyn Hooker.<ref name="ref6"> ''Nevada Gay Times'' 1-84, 5, 15; ''Desert Gays'' 2-84, 4; ''Nevada Gay Times'' 2-84, 1; ''Desert Gaze'' 4-84, 6; Young journals 5.4.84, 5.5.84 [It was Hooker's pioneering research with gay men in the 1950s which led the American Psychiatric Association to eliminate homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1975. (''Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia'' [New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1998]), 293-294]; UNLS McBride Collection</ref>


[[Image:06021984.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Las Vegas Gay Pride]]Gay Pride 1984 was Las Vegas' first outdoor celebration--financed largely by Will Collins with money he had intended as a down payment on a new house. On Saturday, June 2 the Lambda Pride Coalition sponsored a rally in section F of Sunset Park. LPC media contact Terry Wilsey and his lover, Walt Herron, provided their own silver chafing dishes and tableware for the Pride's buffet table. At eight o'clock that evening the crowd released helium balloons printed with the Pride slogan which carried their message over the hotels and casinos of the Las Vegas Strip.<ref name="ref7">Collins; ''Nevada Gay Times'' 4-84, 6; ''Desert Gaze'' 4-84 insert; ''Nevada Gay Times'' 6-84, 9; ''Desert Gaze'' 6-84, 7; ''Nevada Gay Times'' 7-84, 1; ''Desert Gaze'' 7-84, 12; McBride journals 6.5.84</ref>


On June 9, Gay Pride Week ended with the Second Annual Gay Pride Awards and Banquet in UNLV's Moyer Student Union Ballroom. [[Image:Banquet1984.jpg|thumb|left|200px|''Ephemera from Gay Pride Banquet'']]Gary Campbell, openly gay radio personality from Las Vegas' KENO Radio, emceed the event, whose featured speaker was feminist therapist and author Valerie Kirkgaard.<ref name="ref8">''Desert Gaze'' 6-84, 7; ''Nevada Gay Times'' 6-84, 9; ''Nevada Gay Times'' 7-84, 1; McBride journals 6.12.84</ref>

"Unt
il the last few years the term 'gay pride' was alien to me," Michaels wrote. "For many years society taught me that being homosexual was nothing to be proud of. ... On June 2 I went to the Gay Pride rally at Sunset Park. And almost at once I realized why I was wrong. It was inspirational ... . I listened to speakers talk about coming out, being politically active, being true to oneself. I was impressed by the older people and young children there. It made me feel good—and less alone. ... I am proud to be gay."<ref name="ref9">''Desert Gaze'' 7-84, 12</ref>[[Image:McBride_Matheson_Banquet1984.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Dennis McBride and Ken Matheson]]




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==Notes==
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