The scheduled “Pride Season Kickoff” in Boise, Idaho, on June 6 was called off because too few were interested in purchasing tickets, despite online enthusiasm.
“We created the Pride Season Kickoff to bring more Pride to June, based on community demand,” Boise Pride wrote in a Facebook post last week. “But despite strong interest, attendance didn’t reach the level needed to hold the event responsibly. As a result, the June 6 event is canceled and all tickets have been refunded.”
“We remain committed to growing Pride in Boise — but it takes more than excitement. It takes showing up,” the group added. “Thanks for your continued support. We hope to bring this event back in the future — stronger and together.”
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Boise Pride holds an annual celebration in the Idaho capital in September, but added the summer celebration because “the desire for more Pride programming is real — we hear it constantly,” the group said, according to local CBS2.
The canceled event comes amid years-long tension in Idaho regarding LGBT issues. Boise remains one of the few blue bastions at odds with the otherwise overwhelmingly red western state.
Democratic Mayor Lauren McLean delivered the keynote address at a LatinX Pride event on Saturday, warning that present times are “uncertain,” according to the Idaho Statesman.
“We see you, we welcome you, we love you, we need you here,” McLean told the audience in a local park. “We will make it through these tough times better for it, stronger for it and more Boise than Boise’s ever been.”
Last month, the Boise City Council voted 5-1 to make the LGBT pride flag an official city flag, thereby attempting to circumvent a new state law that limits the flags that can be flown on government property.
Councilwoman Luci Willits, who cast the only dissenting vote against the resolution, expressed concerns that the state government would slap the city with “a huge fine” over its actions.
Despite the liberalism in its capital city, the Idaho state Legislature has passed multiple bills pushing back against transgender ideology.
In 2023, Republican Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed the “Vulnerable Child Protection Act,” which made dispensing puberty-blocking drugs and sex-change surgeries on minors a felony.
The bill was opposed at the time by a group of Idaho satanists who protested in the state Capitol.
The state also took action earlier this year to prevent trans-identified men from entering women’s spaces amid ongoing pushback against policies that allow men to enter women’s restrooms, locker rooms and showers.
House Bill 264, which Little signed in April, requires correctional facilities, domestic violence shelters, juvenile correction centers and state institutions of higher education in Idaho to “designate each multi-occupancy restroom, changing room, and sleeping quarters for the exclusive use by either females or males.”
“Every restroom, changing room, or sleeping quarters within a covered entity that is designated for females or males shall only be used by members of that sex,” the bill further stipulates.
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
