Gay and lesbian Vietnamese-Americans say they're marching in Saturday morning's Tet Parade in Westminster, sparking rebukes from a City Council member and Christian leader.
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Bolsavik.com has the scoop. A week ago, the
Partnership of Vietnamese Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender
Organizations–which includes Sống
Thật Radio (“live true”), Gay Vietnamese Alliance, Ô-Môi and the Vietnamese Lesbian and Bisexual Women Network and Friends–announced they would march in the parade down Bolsa Avenue from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday.
Participants are scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. at the intersection of Bolsa and Magnolia Street to embark on this first-ever Westminster Tet Parade march by Little Saigon's openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. Tet is the celebration of the Vietnamese New Year.
“Under the theme of 'Coming out from Northern to Southern California for Marriage Equality and Family Support,' the Partnership of Vietnamese Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and
Transgender Organizations is marching in unity to demonstrate that
there is a thriving Vietnamese Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender
Community in California,” states a Feb. 6 press release from the organizations. “
This Partnership wants to promote acceptance
and inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the
mainstream Vietnamese community.”
A banner declaring “Support Same-Sex Marriage: Equality for ALL”
carried in the parade will be followed by a same-sex wedding “to increase community awareness and to urge
the community to support same-sex marriage and marriage equality
because lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, like everyone
else, deserve the right to have access to marriage, to form a family,
and preserve a long lasting relationship,” the release adds.
Don't look for the Rev. Nguyen Thanh Van and Westminster City Councilman Andy Quach to be pulling up in a welcome wagon to greet the partnership.
As Bolsavik reports, the minister, who leads the Hội Đồng Liên Tôn interfaith council, has called on religious and political groups to boycott the parade.
Quach, who is chairman of the parade's organizing committee, issued a letter in Vietnamese that, according to Bolsavik, states the politician wishes he could ban the gays but that he can't. He asked that everyone still turn out and enjoy the parade.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.