The small southwest Iowa town of Essex banned an LGBTQ group from marching in its Labor Day parade Monday. The Page County town of about 700 boasted that its parade welcomes participants from all around southwest Iowa, but that welcome was withdrawn by Essex’s mayor for Shenandoah Pride, a group of LGBTQ residents from across Page County.
Shenandoah Pride planned to have a small group walking in the parade ahead of a convertible, in which local drag performer Cherry Peaks would be sitting and waving to the crowd. But a few days before the parade, Peaks received an email from Essex Mayor Calvin Kinney saying the group would not be allowed to participate in the parade.
“It feels like they’re trying to shove us back in the closet,” Peaks told KETV News.
According to the email sent to Peaks on Thursday, “Out of concern for the safety of the public and that of Essex Labor Day parade participants, the City of Essex has determined not to allow parade participants geared toward the promotion of, or opposition to, the politically charged topic of gender and/or sexual identification/orientation.”
“This parade will not be used for and will not allow sexual identification or sexual orientation agendas for, or against, to be promoted.”
“People always talk about the LGBTQ agenda, but what is our agenda?” Peaks asked rhetorically during the KETV interview. “Just to live and love who we want.”
Jessa Bears of Shenandoah Pride said the group wanted to participate to show people that LGBTQ Iowans are their friends and neighbors in the small towns of the state’s southwest.
“It’s just really about visibility, and being in the community and showing we work and we go to school with everybody in the community,” Bears told KETV’s Jessica Perez. “And just letting everyone know that we’re here.”
On Friday, the Essex City Council held a special session during which Kinney offered a justification for sending the email and banning Shenandoah Pride without consulting the council. According to the mayor, there had been threats made against the parade if the group was allowed to participate.
“The mayor is leaning hard into the safety aspect of this. I’m not sure he could have squeezed the word safety into his comments about this situation many more times,” Bears wrote in a Facebook post after attending the council meeting. “He shared that threats were made and he received screenshots or emails of these threats but no one on the Shenandoah pride team has seen or heard about the threats.”
Bears continued, “If this was truly about SAFETY, why aren’t the threats being addressed appropriately?… Why weren’t we consulted before this decision was made for us? I think any queer person in southwest Iowa understands the risk they run when they choose to be openly queer in this community. We know there’s a danger, safety has been a part of every discussion in Shen Pride before we go out in public. I believe I’m responsible for making decisions about my own personal safety, I don’t expect a city council to make that decision on my behalf just because I’m gay.”
On Saturday, the ACLU of Iowa sent a letter to Kinney and Essex City Attorney Mahlon Sorensen, in which it noted that it had been in contact with the city attorney, who contradicted the mayor’s claims about safety concerns.
“You [Sorensen] confirmed for us that there was no credible security threat of which you were aware, let alone one justifying the prohibition made by Mayor Kinney, but, nevertheless, told us that the City would not change its position and would prohibit Shenandoah Pride from participating in the parade,” the letter said.
The ACLU advised the mayor to change his decision, because the ban on Shenandoah Pride violated the groups rights to free expression guaranteed by both the U.S. and Iowa constitutions.
“It is obvious from Mayor Kinney’s email that the City is prohibiting Shenandoah Pride from participating in the Labor Day Parade because it disagrees with its position on the rights of LGBTQ+ persons,” the letter stated.
Going forward with the ban would not just violate the rights of those who wanted to march in the parade, but would “potentially expose [the city] to substantial liability.”
BREAKING: City leaders in Essex, Iowa, can’t block the local Pride group from the Labor Day parade just because they don’t like LGBTQ people. So we sent them a letter, advising them of the 1st Amendment free speech and expression rights of ALL community members. pic.twitter.com/DiBqE56ONT
— ACLU of Iowa (@ACLUiowa) September 2, 2023
Kinney, who has not responded to journalists’ inquiries, did not change his position. Shenandoah Pride did not march in the parade. But members attended and were visible on Labor Day in Essex.
“A stranger offered their yard for Shenandoah Pride for the group to watch the parade, and a few floats had pride flags in solidarity,” Bears told the Associated Press.
“Overall, regardless of the very dark shadow over the day, I’d say it was a pretty positive day.”
The group also had a booth at the Rustic Market, a vendor fair that followed the parade, and was organized by the Essex Community Club. There were no incidents, and the people who stopped by the booth were supportive, Bear said.
The Labor Day Parade would have been the first big public event Shenandoah Pride took part in after forming earlier this year. Bear said Kinney’s preventing her and her fellow members won’t stop them from moving forward.
“We’re doing the right thing and we’re going to continue to keep fighting,” she told the Omaha World-Herald.
This story originally appeared in LV Daily, Little Village’s Monday-Friday email newsletter. Sign up to have it delivered for free to your inbox.