With the Olympics underway in London, Orlando is sprinting, and doing quite well, in a different kind of race. As we told you this past March, Orlando submitted a bid to host the 2018 Gay Games and this week received word that the Federation of Gay Games chose them as one of seven cities in the running to host the 10th Edition of the event. Check out the full story for more information.
The International Federation of Gay Games (FGG) has announced Orlando as the only U.S. city to clear the first round of site selection for the tenth edition of the Gay Games. Orlando is one of seven cities to be formally considered for hosting the games. According to the FGG the other six cities are from the European and South American continent and include: Amsterdam, Limerick, London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
Converge Orlando, Inc., the official LGBT Convention and Visitors Bureau of Orlando, has been working for months to bring the games to the Central Florida in an effort to help the local economy and bring a change in equality rights to the state.
“Florida still lags most of the country on gay and lesbian rights. Orlando and Orange County officials are making huge progress towards equal rights in spite of many state and federal obstacles,” says Mikael Frank Audebert, Executive Director of Converge.
With London and Rio both hosting Olympic events, some suggest that they're the underdogs for the Gay Games.
With that said, winning the race for the games would be a huge boost in helping to raise awareness and acceptance in the local Orlando LGBT community and the State of Florida. This year the widely popular "Gay Day" at Walt Disney World was protested by a Florida Family Association flying two planes with banners over the city "warning" unsuspecting families of the pride event in the park.
Hopefully Orlando will win their bid and fly a plane over the city with a banner reading "The gays are coming! Thousands of them! From all over the world!"
I'm so proud of my hometown of Orlando moving closer to hosting the Gay Games. Someone in the chat thread on Facebook asked: Why are there Gay Games to begin with? If you a great athlete you go to the olympics... why not have the 'Straight Games', the 'Black Games', the 'Asian Games' or the 'Native-American Games'?"
I said: Unlike other civil rights struggles where, with an act of Congress or a fundamental shift in public opinion, minorities found themselves welcomed into formerly-closed societies (ie: sports, elected office, the clergy), the world of professional athletics remains one of the most outwardly-homophobic institutions that, despite the strides made toward equality and inclusion, disregards the skill and prowess of incredibly talented athletes simply for being out.
One of the countless benefits of such a public showing of professional out athletes is as an incontrovertible reminder to those who would exclude us from their teams that we are AS STRONG, FAST, and DETERMINED as any other athlete and one day we will share not just a locker room, but victory and glory, side-by-side with our straight athletic allies.
I said:
Unlike other civil rights struggles where, with an act of Congress or a fundamental shift in public opinion, minorities found themselves welcomed into formerly-closed societies (ie: sports, elected office, the clergy), the world of professional athletics remains one of the most outwardly-homophobic institutions that, despite the strides made toward equality and inclusion, disregards the skill and prowess of incredibly talented athletes simply for being out.
One of the countless benefits of such a public showing of professional out athletes is as an incontrovertible reminder to those who would exclude us from their teams that we are AS STRONG, FAST, and DETERMINED as any other athlete and one day we will share not just a locker room, but victory and glory, side-by-side with our straight athletic allies.