Ann Arbor is shutting down its downtown streets next month to host a pride festival featuring drag story hour and a "Kids Zone," handing public space to LGBT activists while taxpayers foot the bill for the disruption.
The 31st annual Ann Arbor Pride festival will block off major thoroughfares — West Liberty from South Ashley to State, South Main from East Huron to East William — for a nine-hour celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer identities, complete with drag performers and activities aimed at children. Meanwhile, a public library in Montgomery, Illinois, is marking America's 250th anniversary with colonial spinning wheel and cannon demonstrations — a celebration of the nation's founding, not its cultural fracture.
The festival, presented by the Jim Toy Community Center, runs August 1 from noon to 9 p.m. According to MLive, it will feature three stages of live entertainment, more than 200 vendors, and a drag story hour. Headliners include Latrice Royale from "RuPaul's Drag Race" and her husband Christopher Hamblin, along with drag queens Erika Norell, Natalie Cole, ShaeShae LaReese, and Terri Vanessa Coleman. Dominique Jackson, known for FX's "Pose," will appear as a special guest. Organizers declared on Facebook it will be their "most significant & impressive celebration yet!"
Last year's festival drew more than 20,000 visitors, up from 10,000 to 15,000 in 2024, per the Ann Arbor Pride website.
The festival advertises "family-friendly entertainment until 6 p.m." and a "Kids Zone" — putting children in the same downtown corridor as drag performances that many parents consider wholly inappropriate. MLive noted the drag story hour without any editorial concern, treating it as just another feature on the schedule.
No word on whether Christian or faith-based groups were offered equal access to Ann Arbor's public streets for a celebration of their own.
Contrast that with the Oswego Public Library District in Montgomery, Illinois, which is inviting the public to celebrate America's 250th anniversary Saturday with colonial American spinning wheel demonstrations by Rebecca Tulloch and cannon demonstrations by Alexander Hamilton's Company of Artillery. Shaw Local reported the event is free, open to the public, and requires no registration — no drag, no ideology, just American history.
One public institution honors the founding. Another clears the streets for activists whose agenda openly challenges the nuclear family and traditional faith. Both use public space. Only one celebrates the country that built it.
Ann Arbor taxpayers might want to ask who approved the street closures, who pays for the cleanup, and whether any group with different values would ever receive the same access to their own downtown.
