Seattle (AFP) – In Seattle’s Ballard district, a drag queen was wielding a microphone and putting on a show ahead of the World Cup meeting of Iran and Egypt. Behind her, a giant screen advertised Friday’s match in this progressive city in the Pacific Northwest, which coincides with Pride Week, an event celebrated here since 1974. Despite chilly temperatures, dozens of people gathered in Ballard and its bars to celebrate diversity.
The match was nominated as a Pride event by Seattle city authorities, long before the World Cup draw was made. When the FIFA computer had finished compiling the fixtures, the two countries who ended up playing in Seattle on that day were certainly not what the Seattle city organizers had hoped for. It has caused tensions at the World Cup, with Iranian and Egyptian officials both raising objections to the Pride celebrations around their fixture. Homosexuality is illegal in Iran under Islamic law and can be punishable by death. In Egypt, homosexuality is often penalized under vaguely worded laws prohibiting “debauchery.”
Both team’s coaches refused to be drawn on their opinion of the event in their pre-match press conferences. In the Rough and Tumble bar, Louise Chernin, 80, a member of a committee organizing the event, told AFP: “A good part of our population is LGBTIQ in Seattle. We celebrate Pride all year, I always say, but June is a big month for us. And of course, especially now, welcoming international fans from all over is very exciting.”
**’Pride night tradition’**
She said there was a tradition of sports teams in Seattle — which is home to the NFL’s Seahawks, the MLB’s Mariners, and a well-established soccer team, the Sounders — holding “a Pride night.” “So in a way, we’re continuing our tradition. We’re very inclusive. We are proud of our diversity, our inclusion, and we want everyone who comes here, regardless of their culture, their language, their background, whether they’re LGBTIQ or not, to know that this is a month where we celebrate Juneteenth, and our black and brown community, as well as our LGBTIQ community,” she added, using the longer acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, and Queer.
Steven Andersen, in his fifties, the grandson of a Norwegian immigrant to the United States, was wearing the vibrant red jersey of Norway’s team and drinking in the scene in a bar. “I partly came to Ballard because there’s some Pride celebration going around the game today,” he said. “It’s absolutely fine that the two teams were not happy about Pride. I believe that everyone should have the right to love who they want to love, and so I have a problem with the politics and the laws in certain countries. But I think our job is to show up as Americans in Seattle, as progressive Americans around those ideals.”
When the match started, a handful of rainbow flags were sprinkled throughout the crowd in the Seattle Stadium — but there was little other sign of the Pride event happening outside its walls.
© 2024 AFP
