Hundreds come to resort to support LGBTQIA+ community
OCEAN CITY — Ocean City’s first Pride Fest drew a few hundred people Saturday morning to send a message of love, acceptance and support to the LGBTQIA+ community.
“You want to surround yourself with people who support you, who uplift you, and don’t waste your time trying to convince others to accept you. I want to get away from this idea we tolerate one another,” guest speaker Nor’easter Nick Pitman told the large crowd that gathered at 9 a.m. at Sixth Street and the boardwalk. “There should be universal acceptance across the board for our actions and for what we do to help other people live a better life.”
“This is amazing to see such a gathering for this cause here in Cape May County,” said Pitman, a popular weather forecaster.
“This is amazing,” Ocean City’s Karen Williams said as she surveyed and welcomed the crowd, many of them with rainbow accoutrements — members of the community and allies.
Identifying herself as an Ocean City native descended from parents, grandparents and great-grandparents from the resort, Williams said the past year has been “both hard but wonderful.” That was a reference to controversy over curriculum issues around sex and gender that arose at Ocean City Board of Education meetings in 2022 that culminated in the formation of We Belong Cape May County, the group that sponsored the Pride Walk and Pride Fest.
“The support of the community for the community is amazing. We want to thank everybody for coming out and for coming out,” she said, drawing cheers from the crowd. Williams is the education board member for We Belong CMC.
“It means a lot as an openly gay man who is married to the love of my life to be able to live openly in our area,” Pitman said.
Being out for the past decade, he said he has never had any real problems “due to the support of our community, which I think is a lot bigger than some may realize.”
Before talking about the path to becoming comfortable in his skin, he drew laughs from the crowd when he noted his recent trip to Disney World.
“What they say about Disney is absolutely true. I felt fine for the first 20 minutes and then my shorts went to five inches, Lady Gaga wouldn’t get out of my head and it turned me frickin’ gay. Would you believe it?” He was referencing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ war against Disney World and the presidential candidate’s verbal and legislative attacks on LGBTQIA+ people in that state.
On a more serious note, Pitman talked about being conflicted growing up in a conservative household.
“That is how I went through my high school years. I lied to myself, dating girls in high school. It never worked out, for obvious reasons. There was a point in my life when I thought I could change myself — that it would be better to take a pill, to not be gay, to not have to endure the hardships out there, to give it all up to feel comfortable in my own skin, because growing up I was not,” he said.
“I finally came to terms that no amount of religion was going to change who I am because you are born a certain way. It is biology. It is nothing else,” Pitman said. “There is no influence of books, there’s no drag queen, there’s no cartoon that is going to turn somebody gay. You are born this way and if you are a believer in a higher power … you would hope that higher power would love us and accept us for who we are.”
“Whether you’re gay, lesbian, transgender, non-binary, it doesn’t matter. We are all here together in a collective cause for humanity and I am deeply honored and humbled to be part of this,” he said.
Suzanne Forrest of Ocean City took part in the Pride Walk on the boardwalk, albeit slowly after a lengthy recovery from a knee replacement, some 30 years after she first walked for LGBTQIA+ rights.
“I was remembering this morning my first march was the March on Washington in 1993. There was a million people there,” she said. “Things grow. This year I don’t know how many people they have here, but it’s a start and it’s an awareness that needs to be here. I have a shirt on that says, ‘Always be yourself.’ I think that if everybody is themselves then everybody will benefit no matter who they are.
“It’s a part of being accepting, having some knowledge, as our speaker said today,” Forrest said. “It’s not books or places or things that make you who you are in life. Last year when we had the little gathering here after the (school) board meetings, those debacles … I thought, ‘OK, this is the beginning of something. This is the start of something positive.’”
Forrest was talking about an impromptu gathering at the beginning of September as We Belong CMC was forming when about 150 people came together and walked the block around the high school to counter-protest a political rally for school board candidates that featured a speaker who viciously attacked the LGBTQIA+ community.
“When you’re young, it’s very hard. You’re struggling with yourself. And it’s a hard thing to do when you think you’re the only one going through it and you don’t know why,” Forrest said. “Now you have more role models in the media than when I came out. I think this is all a positive thing. Walks like this give you a community.”
Alexia French of Galloway, formerly of Upper Township, and Cass McElwee were perusing the booths at the Pride Fest on the practice field next to Carey Stadium.
“I decided to come here today because I am a part of the LGBTQ community and I think it is great that Ocean City is stepping up and noticing and accepting everyone for who they are and what they stand for,” French said. “This is an amazing first event. I think we had an amazing turnout and I’m just happy to be here.”
“I’m actually from outside of Philadelphia but Ocean City has been my childhood home every summer,” McElwee said. “I’m also part of the LGBTQ community and head counts count for these things, for this first one. I wanted to come down and show an impact and support my second hometown.”
Christine Stanford and Jakob Pender were instrumental in the formation of We Belong CMC.
“Since this was our first year with our Ocean City Pride Fest, we weren’t sure what to expect or how things would turn out, but we are absolutely overwhelmed by the support we have here today,” said Stanford, of Upper Township.
“We hear a lot from the loudest voices in the room sometimes and I think this just goes to show there is a lot more love and support than opposition,” she added.
Pender, a 2022 graduate of Ocean City High School now studying physics at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, was impressed by how far and how fast We Belong has moved.
“I think it is amazing that our first march was obviously back in September. It was impromptu when this movement started. It’s been less than a year and we have a full working organization that has non-profit status,” he said. “We have many community members, organizations and businesses coming out to support us. We’ve been able to recruit hundreds of people to come to this event today.
“I think in such a short amount of time from having nothing to organized events and the PRISM Club active in the high school this past year has truly been amazing,” Pender said. “It’s been a feat to be sure.”
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
