Lafayette Council to Issue Pride Month Proclamation

Two Lafayette City Councilman will issue a proclamation declaring June to be Pride Month in the city.

According to the agenda for Tuesday's city council meeting, councilmen Pat Lewis and Glenn Lazard will issue that proclamation near the beginning of the session. That proclamation has the support of some local clergy members, who penned a letter asking Lafayette officials to issue a proclamation supporting Pride Month.

Matthew Humphrey, president of the Lafayette chapter of PFLAG, says he has been in touch with Lewis and Lazard about this proclamation and has had long-term discussions with them about the issue. Humphrey also said he has had previous contact with councilwomen Liz Webb Hebert and Nanette Cook about a possible resolution. When asked if he reached out to councilman Andy Naquin, Humphrey said he hadn't.

Humphrey also said his calls to LCG Minority Affairs Director Carlos Harvin have gone unanswered. This contradicts what Mayor-President Josh Guillory told KPEL last week. Guillory told us that Harvin had indeed returned Humphrey's calls.

Humphrey joined Acadiana's Morning News on Thursday to discuss the latest developments in the Pride Month proclamation. To hear the full interview, click the button below.

All of this comes two weeks after members of Lafayette’s LGBTQ+ community asked Guillory to issue his own proclamation declaring Pride Month in the city and parish. Guillory has signaled that he won’t issue such a proclamation. After that meeting on June 1, Guillory told reporters that LCG has to "make sure we don’t do anything that’s needlessly provocative."

Lafayette Consolidated Government chief administrative officer Cydra Wingerter says Mayor-President Josh Guillory has fought for LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion before and during his term in office began. Wingerter says Guillory will continue to fight for the LGBTQ+ community with or without a proclamation.

"When it comes to issuing a proclamation, the mayor-president looks to see if it is a divisive issue, and by Mr. Humphrey's admission this morning, it is a divisive issue," LCG Chief Administrative Officer Cydra Wingerter said Thursday on KPEL. "The thing that we heard this morning is that (the LGBTQ+ people) want to be included. We would need to know: Where is the LGBTQ community being excluded? Because as the mayor himself has said, if that was the case, he would take every law that he possibly could and go after it himself to make sure that doesn't happen."

To hear Wingerter's full response, click the button below.