{"id":85852,"date":"2025-12-12T19:05:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T19:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/85852\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T19:05:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T19:05:12","slug":"breaking-news-arlington-pride-suspended-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/85852\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING NEWS: Arlington Pride suspended for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

HELP Center for LGBTQ+ Health has just announced that it is suspending the planned 2026 Arlington Pride<\/a> <\/a>event in the wake of the Arlington City Council\u2019s vote on Tuesday, Dec. 9,<\/a> to \u201cdefeat an ordinance that would have restored the city\u2019s anti-discrimination chapter \u2014 protections that have now been suspended for more than three months,\u201d according to a press release from HELP Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot in good conscience invite attendees to an event in a city that refuses to provide even the most basic protections,\u201d said DeeJay Johannessen, HELP Center CEO. \u201cPride is about safety, celebration and community. Without the local anti-discrimination safeguards, we cannot guarantee those values for our attendees, performers or partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Arlington City Council \u2014 under pressure from the Trump administration which threatened to withhold federal funds from cities that don\u2019t get on board with its nationwide war on DEI initiatives \u2014\u00a0voted earlier this year <\/a>to temporarily suspend the city\u2019s nondiscrimination ordinance. After several delays, the council this week rejected an alternative \u00a0ordinance that supporters say would have kept the nondiscrimination protections in place while also protecting federal funding, instead voting to suspend the ordinance indefinitely.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot in good conscience invite attendees to an event in a city that refuses to provide even the most basic protections,\u201d<\/p>\n

DeeJay Johannessen, CEO, HELP Center for LGBTQ+ Health <\/p>\n

\u201cDespite months of work to present an ordinance that fully protected federal grant funding and reinstated safeguards for every Arlington resident, five council members \u2014 Bowie Hogg, Rebecca Boxall, Mauricio Galante, Raul Gonzales and Long Pham \u2014 voted against restoring those protections,\u201d the press release notes. \u201cTheir vote leaves Arlington with no local protections against discrimination for LGBTQ+ people, women, racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, veterans, or families with children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stressing that the decision to suspend Arlington Pride was \u201cnot made lightly,\u201d Johannessen continued, \u201cWe will continue to work with city leadership to restore civil rights protections for everyone. Once those protections are reinstated, we look forward to hosting what has become one of Arlington\u2019s favorite events.\u201d<\/p>\n

HELP Center initiated Arlington Pride in 2021 at the HELP Center\u2019s Arlington campus and has produced the event each June since then. In its second year, the event moved to the Levitt Pavillion in downtown Arlington where it stayed since. According to today\u2019s press release, since its inception Arlington Pride has drawn more than 30,000 attendees<\/a>, with some 70 percent of those people coming from outside the city. \u201cThe event has generated more than $8 million for the local economy, brough world-class performers from around the glove, was voted Best Pride in North Texas and became the largest event ever held at the Levitt Pavillion,\u201d according to the HELP Center press release.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Tammye Nash<\/p>\n

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