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Mike Pence to ‘troll’ Atlanta’s LGBTIs, schedules visit just ahead of Pride

Written by gaytourism

Vice-President Mike Pence. | Photo: NASA HQ PHOTO / Flickr

US Vice President Mike Pence will bring his anti-LGBTI views to Atlanta just ahead of the city’s Pride.

The capital of Georgia will be celebrating Pride next month. The annual festival will take place between 12 and 14 October, for a week of events honoring the community.

Pence will visit Atlanta on 11 October to stump for Brian Kemp, the Republican nominee for governor, currently Secretary of State of Georgia.

Ironically, the Victory Dinner will also fall on National Coming Out Day.

‘Georgians won’t stand for discrimination’

Georgia’s Democrats have criticized Mike Pence’s anti-LGBTI record.

While he was governor of Indiana in 2015, Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) into law. It allows individuals and companies to assert as a defense in legal proceedings that their exercise of religion has been, or is likely to be, substantially burdened. Opponents claimed that such law targets LGBTIs.

Kemp, too, has been backing religious freedom since 2017.

At the end of August 2018, Kemp said he would sign a ‘mirror image’ of the federal RFRA signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993 claiming it will not be discriminatory.

‘By inviting the pioneer of RFRA to Georgia on the eve of Pride weekend, it seems Brian Kemp is trolling Georgia’s LGBTI community and the 400+ major Georgia employers who oppose his plan to sign RFRA into law after all the chaos this law wreaked on Indiana’s economy,’ party spokesman Seth Bringman said in a statement to Project Q.

‘Unfortunately for Mr. Kemp, Georgians won’t stand for discrimination,’ he added.

Pence originally had to visit George on 13 September, but that visit was rescheduled due to Hurricane Florence.

On that occasion, the local LGBTI community was organizing a Pence Don’t Bring Your Hate to Georgia protest. It is likely a new protest will be organized around the time of Pence’s visit.

Atlanta Pride

Atlanta Pride’s 2018 theme is Forever Proud, Forever Loud.

Now in its 48th year, the festival starts on 13 October with the Official Kickoff Party at the Georgia Aquarium.

The festival will once again feature three stages. On Saturday, the Coca-Cola stage will see Social House and AJ Mitchell perform. Logan Henderson, Bryce Vine, CeCe Peniston, Madison Beer, Bebe Rexha and Mike Posner will also join.

Read more here.

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