Jennifer Rotenizer/The Sun News
Female impersonator Macy Alexander, Miss Grand Strand, revs up the crowd Saturday while sitting on the hood of a Jeep full of The Girlz from Raleigh, N.C., during the S.C. Gay and Lesbian Pride March.
Janet Blackmon Morgan/The Sun News
A woman from the crowd reaches out to encourage a biker participating in the march.
By Katie Merx
THE SUN NEWS - 05/03/98
The message Saturday at the S.C. Gay and Lesbian Pride March and Festival was not loud, but it was clear: ''It is not OK for homosexuals to be second-class citizens.''
Celebrities, including Betty DeGeneres and Candace Gingrich, shared that message. The estimated 5,000 (police estimate) to 8,000 (festival organizers) festival attendees applauded it.
Saturday's Gay Pride event was a first for Myrtle Beach and for DeGeneres. DeGeneres is the mother of actor and comedian Ellen DeGeneres and the first heterosexual chairwoman of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign's National Coming Out Project.
''My main reason for being here is to stress how important coming out is for our gay and lesbian family members,'' DeGeneres said. ''Coming out is the only way that I know, from personal experience, to find the happiness and support that all of us and all of our families deserve. ...
''The basic message about coming out is about honesty, acceptance and love. It's universal, and it's the way we bring our families together. That's the way it is supposed to be, and that's a family value that all of us share.''
DeGeneres' schedule does not usually include Pride marches, HRC communication director David Smith said, because if it did she wouldn't have time for anything else.
DeGeneres and Gingrich changed their schedules to be able to attend the Myrtle Beach Pride rally because they were appalled by the stances Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride and local developer Burroughs & Chapin Co. Inc. have taken regarding the festival.
A year ago, while a City Council member but not yet the mayor, McBride objected to a gay bar moving into the tourist area near the Myrtle Beach Pavilion amusement park. He also was the only council member to oppose closing city streets downtown for the Gay Pride Festival.
Burroughs & Chapin, one of the area's largest landowners, wouldn't allow the Village People to perform an outdoor concert on its property and asked tenants not to sponsor events for the festival. The company has said any and all people are welcome to visit its attractions.
But the company also changed its company slogan recently because it had included the word ''pride.''
''They've taken such an active, visible step to discriminate and to keep the [homosexual] community down here invisible,'' Smith said, that is why DeGeneres and Gingrich felt so strongly that it was necessary to participate.
Gingrich, the half sister of U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., works as a field consultant and spokeswoman for the HRC.
Kickoff for 1998
For Gingrich, the Myrtle Beach festival kicks off a season of Pride marches across the country.
''None of them are as important as this one,'' Gingrich said, because she said it's not often that public officials and large companies such as Burroughs & Chapin make the statements they have made so openly.
''They almost seem proud of their statements,'' Gingrich said.
That's why, she said, it is so important for people to be open with their friends and family if they are homosexual. The more people who know someone who is gay, she said, the more people will understand or try to understand homosexuality and the need for equal rights.
''It's important for you to make your voice heard,'' Gingrich told festival participants. ''Show elected officials you want your rights.''
Jon Holden and Michael Gallucio also urged participants to be proud of themselves and to push for equal rights.
The couple successfully sued New Jersey and, in December, won the right for gay and unmarried couples to jointly adopt children, making the state the first in the country to allow gay, lesbian and unmarried couples to adopt children on equal footing with married couples.
The couple's suit allowed them to keep their adopted son, Adam, 2. They hope to adopt another child, foster daughter, Madason, 18 months. Both children accompanied the couple to Myrtle Beach.
''The mayor was right - this is a great family town,'' Holden said. ''[But] there are still those who refuse to believe that families do and always have come in different shapes and sizes.''
''So that's why we are here today,'' Gallucio said, ''because it's our responsibility to our children to show the world that we do exist, to show the world that we are a family.
''As long as we stay hidden, the ones who hate us are going to win. As long as we believe we are less than everybody else, we will be. It's time for us to be brave. It's time for us to stand up and be counted. I don't care what anyone says. This is a family.''
Positive feedback
Participants applauded Holden and Gallucio, but it was their son, Adam, who won over the crowd. As his daddies finished speaking, Adam reached for the microphone, so they let him say goodbye. Instead, he sang the alphabet song. He got the tune right, but didn't quite use all 26 letters.
''I have been so impressed with this,'' Leslie Johnson of Greenville said of the festival.
Johnson attended the festival because she has a gay son and wants to make things better for others who are gay.
''I have seen absolutely nothing negative here,'' she said. ''Usually, there are protesters standing on the side of the parade route. Here, they are letting people just be people.''
Laurie Trevor, who lives just outside Conway, and her mother, Maxine Bradley, who owns a condominium in Myrtle Beach and lives in Greensboro, N.C., said they are both heterosexual but attended the festival because they have a relative who is gay.
''We are here marching today to let Mayor Mark McBride and Burroughs & Chapin know we believe in family values for all families,'' Trevor said.
Trevor carried a sign in Saturday's parade that read: ''My gay brother has family values. He has me.''
While many participants expressed anger about McBride and Burroughs & Chapin, they also applauded Myrtle Beach City Councilwoman Judy Rodman for speaking at the rally.
Rodman welcomed participants in the morning and said: ''I think that diversity is what we should be so proud of in Myrtle Beach. There are so many things here for you to enjoy. We are glad that you are here. Have a good time. Myrtle Beach is proud to have you.''
And while not all visitors and locals who saw the parade and rally said it was ''their kind of thing,'' many said it wasn't a big deal.
''I don't like it,'' said Jennifer Minnick of Florence, who was in town for the weekend with a friend. ''People that are gay, it doesn't matter to me. But when they're whooping and hollering, I don't like that. At least it didn't last too long.''
''They get off on it. It's not my thing, but that's them,'' said one visitor from Rockingham, N.C. ''It didn't look too bad. It wasn't a big deal. We watched it.''
Frances and Tommy Brown of Surfside Beach said it was a tame parade, as well. The Browns drove to Myrtle Beach to see the parade because they were curious and knew people would be talking about it afterward.
''We don't support it,'' Frances Brown said, ''but we don't judge it either. Our Christian belief is that we don't do that.''
''They are down here all year,'' Tommy Brown said. ''They live here, they vacation here. What's the difference?''
''We don't understand it,'' Frances Brown said, ''but you know the Bible says we're supposed to love them anyway. This is America. This is freedom.''
''I guess it's just a changing of the times,'' Tommy Brown said.
''If you look back in the Bible,'' Frances Brown said, ''it's always been around. And the ones we've worked with have always been real nice, just the nicest people. We can't say how they feel. They probably don't understand how we feel. I just hope none of them get hurt. I hope there aren't any problems.''
By Saturday evening, Brown's wishes were holding true.
No major problems
Police, including those from departments other than Myrtle Beach, who had come to help in the event of a large or rowdy crowd, were sent home early.
During the march, some people thought a man preaching from a street corner was protesting. But Bill Smith, who stood on the corner of Ninth Avenue North and Ocean Boulevard on Saturday afternoon with his Bible, said he hadn't come specially for the march.
''I come down here most weekends between May and Labor Day,'' Smith said. ''I come out here as often as possible. We're not out here because of this. We preach about the love of God.''
There weren't any major problems, police said.
The only minor problem was when festival organizers asked Myrtle Beach police to ask a man to leave the rally in the afternoon.
Michael Johnston, a man with AIDS who calls himself a former homosexual, was asked to leave the rally shortly before Gingrich spoke Saturday.
Johnston, who speaks nationally about how to overcome homosexuality, had been taking pictures all day of speakers and participants. Johnston did leave the festival area, but stood outside the barricades for the rest of the event, still taking pictures.
''They asked me to leave because they just didn't want me there,'' Johnston said. ''I think it brings into question everything they said [about respecting other people's opinions and beliefs].''
Festival organizer Patrick Evans said they had asked Johnston to leave because he had made festival participants uncomfortable by taking their pictures. Johnston travels across the country talking about what he calls helping people overcome their homosexuality, and sometimes shows pictures and video from gay pride festivals.
After Johnston left, an associate remained at the event taking pictures.
Katie Merx is the City Hall reporter in Myrtle Beach and can be reached at 444-1723 or 1-800-568-1800, Ext. 723.
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