Edric Floyd essentially came out at Atlanta Pride. But which year depends on what counts as “coming out.”

After moving to central Georgia from South Florida, Floyd struggled with being gay. He gathered the nerve to drive to Atlanta from Warner Robins, Ga., to attend a book-signing by gay Olympic diver Greg Louganis at Outwrite Bookstore, and also learned about a coming out support group in Atlanta, but never mustered up the courage to attend.

Then he heard a news report about the 1995 Atlanta Pride festival.

“I just knew that was finally going to be my coming out. I even stopped at the car wash so my almost brand new red Saturn coupe was as shiny as my feelings and hopes were that day,” he said.

Unfortunately fear won out, and Floyd spent his first Pride sitting in his car across the street from Piedmont Park.

“I spent the next year as a basket case,” he said.

But by 1996, Floyd was determined.

“One of the scheduled speakers was Coretta Scott King, the widow of the man I admired the most, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It became my mission to go to the gay Pride festival to see a civil rights legend,” he said.

And he did. Floyd watched the parade, heard Mrs. King speak, then visited the festival booths.

“It was there that my coming out was official and my life was reborn,” Floyd said. “A nice woman spoke to me as I stood in front of her table and asked me if I needed help. She said I looked lost.”

The woman was president of the Macon chapter of Parents, Friends & Families of Lesbians & Gays. Floyd began attending meetings of the group a week later.

Flash forward 15 years: Floyd now serves as president of PFLAG Macon and hasn’t missed an Atlanta Pride festival.

“I have life because of these entities and I feel they are important resources for lost souls who live in places where support and acceptance is hard to find,” he said.

“Atlanta Pride is a magnet that bring us together and helps some of us discover our true selves,” he continued. “I don’t think I would be here if not for it.”

From June to October

Pride festivals are traditionally held in June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall Riots, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City, fought back against police harassment in what is widely seen as a turning point for gay rights.

But after being held the last weekend in June in Piedmont Park for most of its history, Atlanta Pride was forced to move in 2008 when city officials booted large festivals from the park due to a record drought.

Held over July Fourth weekend at the Civic Center, Pride attendance and finances suffered. The festival moved back to Piedmont Park for 2009, but over Halloween, to get around city policies that limited festivals in the summer season due to drought concerns.

In 2010, the Atlanta Pride Committee announced it would hold future festivals on the weekend closest to National Coming Out Day, which is Oct. 11. For 2011, that means the festival will draw tens of thousands to Piedmont Park Oct. 8-9.

Pride and National Coming Out Day are a perfect fit, according to James Sheffield, Pride executive director.

“I think Pride events play a significant role in coming out. You don’t have to come out at Pride, but the boost in self esteem and access to support it provides aids the process,” he said.

Pride has a personal connection to Sheffield coming out, too — not once, but twice.

He attended his first Atlanta Pride in 1997, while still in high school and still living as a woman.

“I collected all the free rainbow stuff and took it home, where I promptly hid it in a t-shirt drawer. Something about knowing it was there made me feel better, even though it was rare that I could actually take it out,” Sheffield said.

But the high school student came home one day to find the drawer wide open.

“I remember thinking, ‘Well, I guess I just came out to my Dad,’” Sheffield said. “I started working for Pride a couple of years later and have always held that particular memory close as the festival wraps up.”

Sheffield also came out as a transgender man and transitioned while serving as director of Atlanta Pride — a second, very public coming out that helped educate the community about the “T” in LGBT.

National Coming Out Day and every day

It’s stories like those told by Floyd and Sheffield that are what National Coming Out Day is all about.

The holiday was created more than 20 years ago to bring increased visibility to the LGBT community, which had faced difficult struggles with HIV/AIDS, the 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding sodomy laws, and more, yet was also energized by the 1987 gay rights March on Washington.

“The only time the world had to deal with us, or hear about our issues, was in June” when Pride celebrations were held, said Lynn Shepodd, one of the original organizers of National Coming Out Day and a former Atlanta resident. “The rest of the year our needs were virtually non-existent in the public conversation; the media didn’t cover us that much and we were hardly even on the radar screen of Congress.”

The first National Coming Out Day was held in 1988, and was led by gay groups The Experience and National Gay Rights Advocates. Shepodd was hired as executive director in 1990. In 1993, National Coming Out Day became part of what is now the Human Rights Campaign. Atlanta Pride is a great fit for National Coming Out Day, said Shepodd, who serves on HRC’s national Board of Governors and lived in Atlanta for 10 years before moving to Los Angeles in 2008.

“For Atlanta Pride to create the space for LGBT people to tell the truth about their lives is precisely the right thing to do. There is room for celebration, education, fun, and commitment to a brighter future,” she said.

“If there is a place where our community has critically important work to do, it is Georgia,” she added. “Atlanta Pride builds community because it brings so many of us together as one of the largest Prides in the country.

“That empowerment inspires us all to move forward.”

Top photo: The Atlanta Pride Festival is now held in October to commemorate National Coming Out Day. (Photo by Dyana Bagby)

Atlanta’s Jewish community is coming together the day after Yom Kippur to march for the first time in the Atlanta Pride parade on Sunday, Oct. 9.

Typically, the day after Yom Kippur — the Day of Atonement that calls for reflection, prayer and fasting — is a day of rest for Rabbi Josh Lesser, who leads the gay-founded Congregation Bet Haverim. This year, he’ll be riding atop a float.

“I’ll be in full energy mode,” he said with a laugh.

Congregation Bet Haverim is partnering with The Temple, Atlanta’s oldest synagogue, and Temple Sinai of Sandy Springs, to march in the Pride parade as part of a pilot program of the Institute for Judaism and Sexual Orientation called the Welcoming Synagogues Project.

The project aims to help synagogues be welcoming to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, Lesser said.

“The program was hatched about two years ago and I’ve been talking [with the Institute] about what has been happening in Atlanta, how the city has such a large gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, and how we thought the city would be a good pilot for the program,” said Lesser. “One of benchmarks was getting more synagogues involved in Pride.”

But when Atlanta Pride announced its dates, Oct. 8-9, and those dates conflicted with Yom Kippur, there was doubt the program would take place here.

“What happened with Pride made this a bit more difficult,” Lesser said. “People were, ‘Oy, we have some work to do.’ And there are still people in our LGBT community who don’t understand.

“Now Pride itself, after its initial lack of awareness, has really taken great steps to be understanding. We had this [project] planned all along and to make it happen we believed it would be helpful if we could show Pride was a willing partner, and they have been.”

Atlanta Pride is including CBH’s Yom Kippur services as part of its official lineup of events and there will be shuttle services from Piedmont Park throughout the day on Saturday, Oct. 8, for those wanting to attend the services at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church on LaVista Road.

There will also be a memorial service called Yizkor for those who have died, including a special commemoration for the numerous LGBT-related suicides that have made headlines in recent months.

A Jewish meet-and-greet is planned for after the parade on Sunday and a possible meeting with Ari Gold, the gay Jewish singer performing Sunday at Pride, is in the works, Lesser said.

Congregation Bet Haverim and the Rainbow Center, a social services program of Jewish Family & Career Services serving LGBT people, have participated in Atlanta Pride for many years. But this is this first year other synagogues are making a committed effort to reach out to LGBT people and others who may want to become members at Atlanta Pride.

“With so much oppression of GLBT people directed by some of the faith communities in this country, it is gratifying that this year we will embody the value of Tikkun Olam by standing up for others,” said Rebecca Stapel-Wax, director of the Rainbow Center.

Top photo: Rabbi Josh Lesser of Congregation Bet Haverim looks forward to a ‘vital Jewish presence’ at this year’s Atlanta Pride. (by Dyana Bagby)

Nothing makes one appreciate the good times more than remembering the difficult trials that have been endured. While Atlanta Pride has evolved into a celebratory and gleeful event, the annual Pride AIDS vigil commemorates a time when our community was overwhelmed by loss and despair.

“I think it’s a crucial part of any Pride festivity,” said Josh Noblitt, minister of social justice at St. Mark United Methodist Church, which hosts this year’s AIDS vigil Oct. 5.

“In addition to celebrating, in addition to partying, there must be a time of remembrance,” he said. “There must be a time of remembering those who have come before us, those who we lost along the way, and celebrate their life as well as grieve their loss.

“I think that really helps us appreciate the celebratory aspects of Pride even more,” Noblitt added.

The theme of this year’s vigil is “Compassion, Commitment, Community — 30 years of AIDS.” Recent data has revealed that three decades into the epidemic, HIV/AIDS continues to affect gay men in large numbers. However, the progress that has been made in making HIV a treatable and manageable disease leaves room for celebration, and the current epidemic is many miracles away from the darkest period in gay Atlanta history.

“There was a time where weekend after weekend after weekend that there were funerals at the St. Mark sanctuary,” Noblitt said. “And so that space is just a really sacred space for many in our community because that was where they had services for many of their friends.

“St. Mark has a long history of being one of the first churches in the metro Atlanta area that really stepped out and welcomed folks who were dealing with HIV/AIDS, and their partners and their families,” he said.

Top photo: Rev. Joshua Noblitt (file photo)

A visit to church might not be an obvious entry in a Gay Pride itinerary, but for more than two decades Integrity Atlanta has made sure the affirmation of Pride extends to the spiritual realm.

“So many people have been battered, bruised, beaten up by organized religion, and our goal is to provide a safe space where that will not happen to them,” said Bruce Garner of Integrity Atlanta, which hosts its 22nd annual Pride Eucharist Oct. 6 at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Midtown.

“It’s been important for us to offer a space where they will hear of their value as children of God, just the way God made them, without exceptions,” Garner said. “We felt like there was a need within the LGBT community for a safe space to exercise spirituality, and it’s a boisterous, joy-filled, good place to be for the duration of the service."

Organizers of the Pride Eucharist always arrange for an LGBT clergy member to deliver the sermon, believing it is essential for attendees “to hear from one of our own,” Garner said. This year, the honor goes to Rev. Bradley Schmeling of St. John’s Lutheran Church.

With the support of his congregants, Schmeling fought to remain a Lutheran pastor after acknowledging that he was gay and in a relationship. His battle eventually led to the denomination allowing gay clergy in committed relationships.

“His story is a very important story in history of LGBT people, and ultimately resulted in a change in the policy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,” Garner said. “There’s no longer a barrier to people who are LGBT, even those with partners, serving as pastors of a Lutheran congregation.”

Top Photo: Rev. Bradley Schmeling, who fought to change Lutheran church policies that barred non-celibate gay clergy, will give the sermon at this year’s Pride Eucharist. (file photo)