Pride of Monterey County celebrates 15th annual festival—while bemoaning the lack of local gay outlets.

The year was 1994, and Bill McBride was living in Des Moines, Iowa. He had been out for 20 years, but in ‘94, he decided to march in his first gay pride parade.

“There is something incredibly liberating if you’ve never been to a pride event,” says McBride, the volunteer director for Pride of Monterey County. “It changed my whole perspective. I’m not as shy or reserved.”

It’s a week before Pride of Monterey County kicks off its 15th annual festival. A handful of Pride board members sit around a table and talk about the local gay scene and about the 2005 Pride Festival, which will be held on Saturday, July 23.

It’s the largest annual event produced by the organization, and they say this weekend’s shindig is going to be Monterey’s biggest Pride ever, with upwards of 2,000 attendees at the Monterey Fairgrounds.

They’ve booked some big name performers, including the Chicano All Stars, Karma and Vermillion Lies, and a live DJ for the all-day dance party.

Proceeds from the event will go to Pride’s scholarship fund for high school students who are affected by AIDS.

Monterey Mayor Dan Albert will be at the festival, and local legislator John Laird, the first openly gay man to serve in the State Assembly, had planned to attend, but budget business will keep him in Sacramento. The event will also include food and drink booths, shopping, games, information booths, and the coronation of Mr. and Ms. Gay Monterey County.

“This event is so important for the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] community here because [they] don’t have a lot to do,” says Lindsay Alexander, the board’s director of marketing and design. She’s straight, and she sits on the board because she says it’s important for straight people to support their gay brothers and sisters. “So here’s one day to stand up and wave their rainbow flags and come out of the closet for this one day.”

The group agrees that they would like to see the gay community become more active locally on other days of the year, too.

“We need more events,” says Board President Annette Molina. “Barbecues, softball games, bowling nights.”

Alexander suggests music in the park.

Monday nights at Morgan’s Coffee & Tea used to be an unofficial gay night, but it has lost steam over the past year.

“There’s Lighthouse Bar and Grill on Friday and Saturday nights,” Alexander says, “But alcoholism is a big problem in the gay community, so it’s frustrating to me that our main meeting place is a bar. We need more.”

In the next couple months, Board Secretary and Political Liaison David Jensen plans to form a Political Action Committee.

“The events in the past have always been about having fun—that’s great,” Jensen says. “We need to enjoy ourselves as a community. But I want us to be more socially aware.”

He talks about endorsing candidates, lobbying politicians and hosting town hall meeting. He wants to encourage people to register to vote, and to fight a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage.

“I find it outrageous that we would add discrimination to a document that was created to make sure we are all looked upon as equal,” he says.

“Our goal is to have a diversity center,” says Vice President Christopher Conley, last year’s Mr. Gay Monterey County, “But that’s years off. We’re still a fledgling organization.”

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Gay culture has been an active part of the Monterey Peninsula since the late 1950s and 60s, beginning with Carmel’s bohemian artist community, a place where diversity was welcomed.

But when talking to Pride board members about the current climate throughout Monterey County, their responses seem contradictory.

“We’re not a screaming gay community like in larger cities,” says Conley. “We’re not as political.”

On one hand, they describe the area as a “closeted community”—they all have stories about approaching vendors and businesses to sponsor the Pride Festival only to be turned away because the business didn’t want to be involved with a gay event.

On the other hand, they say it’s a “tight-knit community” where it’s safe to come out to friends and family.

At work, says Molina, “we’re out and we don’t have to hide it.” Many jobs offer domestic partners benefits, she adds.

But in the next breath, Pride board members compare their community to their LGBT counterparts in San Francisco and Santa Cruz and say that they wish that Monterey County’s gays and lesbians were as organized.

“Along the coast, we’re a more active community,” Conley says.

He says it’s not so open in the Salinas Valley.

“Within the Latino culture, a lot of us are Catholic and very old-fashioned,” Molina says. She came out in 1984, after graduating high school and attending Hartnell College. Both she and her younger brother, Ernie, were gay. “Growing up, we used to play dress up,” she says. “I’d dress up in suits and he used to dress up in high heels and purses.” She came out first.

“I broke the ice,” Molina jokes. “My brother had it easy.”

Six years ago, Ernie Molina died from AIDS related illnesses. Pride of Monterey County is considering naming the scholarship fund in his memory.

“I’m not really out to my straight friends, either,” McBride says. He’s been wearing a rubber rainbow bracelet around his wrist for the past two weeks. Recently, he says, he went out with his straight friends. He would usually take off the bracelet or push it up under his shirt sleeve. But this time, he forgot. When he realized he was wearing the bracelet, he decided not to hide it.

“Nobody freaked,” he says.

I ask him if people tend to be more accepting than one would expect.

“Absolutely,” he says.

THE PRIDE FESTIVAL WILL BE HELD JULY 23, NOON TO 8PM, AT THE MONTEREY COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS. $10. FOR A COMPLETE SCHEDULE OR FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL 877-839-8407 OR visit WWW.MONTEREYPRIDE.ORG.