St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Keller, Texas, hosted the city’s first Pride festival on Oct. 4. The event attracted at least 1,600 people and included live music, food trucks, games, face painting, arts vendors, yoga, mental health workshops and more. Photo: Pride Keller/Facebook
[Episcopal News Service] St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Keller, Diocese of Texas, hosted the city’s first Pride festival in collaboration with Pride Kel-So despite protests and backlash from local lawmakers.
At least 1,600 people attended the Oct. 4 Pride festival on St. Martin-in-the-Fields’ 12-acre campus, according to the Rev. Alan Bentrup, the church’s rector. He told Episcopal News Service that despite his congregation being “purple” politically, the vestry unanimously agreed to let the parish host the festival and be an example of “Jesus’ radical welcome.”
“It was just one way we can be a good neighbor and show God’s love to a community that too often has not felt that from churches,” Bentrup said.
Most Pride festivals and parades are celebrated in June during Pride Month, but many cities nationwide celebrate later in the year for various reasons, such as to coincide with National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11, or to avoid extreme summer heat. April Dreyson, co-founder of Pride Kel-So, said Pride Kel-So scheduled its festival for October to avoid the extreme heat – the city is in north-central Texas – and because October is LGBTQ History Month and many Pride festivals in the Dallas-Fort Worth areas already take place in June. The later date also gave the planning committee more preparation time.
“My wife [fellow Pride Kel-So co-founder Shaina Dreyson] and I both grew up in Keller and had no idea for the longest time that there’s such a huge LGBTQ+ community within Keller despite this area being so conservative,” Dreyson said. “We didn’t have any visibility here, but now we’re providing it to the community. …It was very beautiful and we’re still processing how incredible the festival was.”
April and Shaina Dreyson connected with Bentrup after noticing that St. Martin-in-the-Fields was sponsoring an interfaith concert supporting the North Texas TRANSportation Network, a nonprofit that provides travel and relocation grants to North Texas families of youth needing out-of-state gender-affirming care. They began planning the Pride festival earlier this year.
The Pride Kel-So festival included live music, food trucks, games, face painting, arts vendors, yoga, mental health workshops and more. Seven other LGBTQ+ affirming churches from the area also had booths at the event.
Some lawmakers in Tarrant County, whose county seat is Fort Worth, openly opposed the festival ahead of the event, particularly plans for a drag show that Dreyson said was family friendly. A transgender musician also was scheduled to perform, but she voluntarily withdrew from the lineup to protect herself from further backlash. On Sept. 29, Keller Mayor Armin Mizani posted on X accusing the event of violating Texas Senate Bill 12, a law which prohibits sexually oriented performances in front of minors but was blocked by a federal court after being declared unconstitutional. The law was originally intended to specifically target drag shows, according to The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit politics and public policy website based in Austin.
Dreyson and Bentrup said they intentionally avoided engaging with protesters, many who arrived with signs denouncing the festival and quoting passages from the Old Testament that are interpreted as anti-LGBTQ+, such as Proverbs 16:18, which addresses pride and arrogance. One protester yelled at Bentrup when he offered him a bottle of water. Another screamed obscenities at festivalgoers, including children, through a bullhorn, as members of the Oak Lawn Band, an LGBTQ+ ensemble, marched over to him and performed “as loudly as possible” to drown out the obscenities, according to Bentrup.
“I didn’t hear a lot of the words of Jesus,” he said.
Bentrup said many “angry” protesters called St. Martin-in-the-Fields to express disapproval of the church’s stance affirming LGBTQ+ people and of hosting the Pride festival. He responded by asking for prayers that all festivalgoers are safe.
“That, to me, is what got through to a lot of people,” he said. “We’re still going to disagree, but they’re not yelling at me anymore, and I’m not yelling at them anymore, because that doesn’t lead anywhere good.”
Before the festival, some people called Dreyson expressing concerns over a church hosting the Pride festival because “there’s so much religious trauma in the LGBTQ+ community, and so many have been turned away from church.”
“[Bentrup] has healed so much of that trauma for me personally without ever giving any pressure to attend his church. He’s just genuinely there for us,” Dreyson said. “We wouldn’t have held this festival at a church that wasn’t truly affirming. It’s hard to compete with all the mega churches out here, but it’s so reassuring to know such affirming and welcoming churches [like St. Martin-in-the-Fields] are out there.”
-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.