By August Berkshire

Almost fifty people took part in marching in our contingent in the Twin Cities Gay Parade on June 24, or staffing our booth in Loring Park during the Gay Pride Festival on June 23 and 24. Our friendly volunteers collected lots of hugs and handed out a hundred “Saved By An Atheist” cards as we marched, as well as signed up almost 200 people at our booth to get more information about Minnesota Atheists. Most of us were wearing our new Minnesota Atheists’ “Minnesota Atheists Supports Marriage Equality” t-shirts.

At the end of the festival, a couple people passing out Bibles stopped by our booth and engaged in more that a half-hour’s worth of debate with some of our members. No minds were changed but at least we delayed, for a while, the spread of homophobic literature.

Thank you to everyone who made this event such a great success! Participants included:
Sarah Bachmann-Lane, August Berkshire, Dave Bradley, Caroline Brunner, Jack Caravela, Stephanie Chase, Morgan Christian, Brandy D., Linda Davis, Brad G., Carl Hancock, Greg Hart, Ella Haubrich, Mike Haubrich, Heather Hegi, Grant Hermanson, Joseph Homrich, Laura Hutt, Eric Jayne, Catey Jordan, George Kane, Nikki Lambert, Pete Lane, Ben Lass, Rhonda LeSage, Michelle Losey, Brenda M., Marisa M., Finn McCauley, Karen McCauley, Pete McCauley, Kristin Meyer, Shirley Moll, Mahad Muhammad, Ryan Nichols, David Norris, JuliAnne Owens, David Pacheco, Chris Pederson, David Perry, Steve Petersen, Rohit Ravindran, Tom Riddering, Katy Strum, Mike Toft, Richard Trombley (photographer), Georgia Tsoi, Amy Wilkerson, and Rachel Wilson.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak (pictured above with our members) and U.S. Representative Keith Ellison (pictured below with our members) greeted our group and posed for a couple of pictures with us. Perhaps they saw one of the signs we were carrying: "Atheists Vote." Also, Minnesota State Senator John Marty stopped by our booth to say hello.