How a Nashville suburb’s LGBTQ pride festival became a bitter flashpoint

An LGBTQ+ activist with the pride flag during a pride festival in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

For the past two years, thousands of people have descended on a public park in Franklin, Tennessee — a suburb 30 minutes outside Nashville — for an LGBTQ pride festival featuring live music, food trucks and crafts vendors. Clayton Klutts, the president of the Franklin Pride organization, viewed the event as a glowing symbol of how far a small, conservative community had come in terms of LGBTQ acceptance.

But this year, Franklin Pride’s attempts to obtain a city permit have been met with fierce resistance. What had been a procedural formality in past years has become a bitter flashpoint that mirrors similarly heated debates roiling the United States.

“The idea that we wouldn’t allow a pride event in the year 2023 is a little bit hard to fathom,” Klutts said. “It feels like we’re going backwards.”

The conflict came to a head during a public forum at City Hall late last month…

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