Anti-gay pride resolution fails in Arkansas

An alderman in Conway, Ark., had about 200 loud supporters behind him for a resolution to denounce a gay pride parade scheduled for this weekend, but not one of his colleagues on the city council would second his call for a vote on Tuesday. Alderman Sandy Brewer's proposal was to dissociate the city from the parade planned for Sunday, the 35th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York's Greenwich Village. The resolution would not have carried any legal weight but would have called the parade "a potentially divisive and disruptive activity" that the city would "neither encourage nor condone." The crowd complained vociferously when the other aldermen met Brewer's proposal with silence, never seconding the motion and therefore not opening the floor to debate. Parade organizers John Schenck and Robert Loyd welcomed the public response, saying it was good to begin discussing the issue. Schenck and Loyd live in a bright pink house in Conway and held a public commitment ceremony on the steps of the state capitol in Little Rock earlier this year.