PRIDE
With COVID in Check, Taiwan Celebrates Pride
Queer community turns out big one year after achieving marriage equality
BY MATT TRACY
An estimated crowd of
at least 100,000 people
participated in Taiwan’s
annual Pride celebration
in Taipei on October 31,
marking one of the only large-scale
Pride events on the globe during
the coronavirus era.
The festivities were made possible
by the low rate of COVID-19
transmission in Taiwan, where
just 554 confi rmed cases and seven
deaths have been reported after
the nation locked down its borders.
Marchers launched the annual
Pride event at Taipei City Hall and
proceeded along two routes with
large Rainbow Flags and fl oats, according
to Nikkei Asia.
The LGBTQ community in Taipei
also turned out for a Pride
march in June when organizers
sought to hold a large demonstration
in an effort to pay tribute to
LGBTQ communities around the
world that were unable to hold
such events during Pride month.
However, reports indicated that the
June event only drew hundreds of
individuals.
The latest march came more
than a year after Taiwan legalized
marriage for same-sex couples after
a years-long slog that saw an
international wave of religious
conservatives fl ood the nation with
fi erce opposition to the marriage
movement.
Religious conservatives have remained
infl uential in Taiwan, and
the October 31 Pride festivities yet
again drew scorn from the Christian
right. An annual event in Taiwan
known as the National Prayer
Breakfast, which is produced by
Christian church groups of differ-
REUTERS/ ANN WANG
Revelers donned Rainbow masks to mark Taiwan’s annual Pride event.
➤ TAIWAN PRIDE, continued on p.23
CRIME
Vandal Chops Up Pride Flag at Manhattan Bakery
Lower East Side business owners vow to maintain LGBTQ-friendly aura despite attack
BY MATT TRACY
Debbie Weiner, a co-owner
of Sugar Sweet Sunshine
Bakery on the
Lower East Side, arrived
to work early in the morning
on October 20 and noticed something
was off.
Weiner spotted something unusual
about the Rainbow Flag
that she and co-owner Peggy Williams
have displayed in front of
the bakery at 126 Rivington Street
between Essex Street and Norfolk
Street.
But it was nothing major. She
just thought the fl ag appeared to
be a bit shorter than usual.
“I had a feeling something was
not quite right,” Weiner said.
But that was not necessarily indicative
of anything to her: When
the Sugar Sweet Sunshine team
The ripped Rainbow Flag at the Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery on the Lower East Side.
closes the shop at night, they simply
wrap the fl ag around its pole to
shorten it for the overnight hours
before unfurling it again the next
FACEBOOK/ SUGAR SWEET SUNSHINE BAKERY
day.
Weiner assumed the fl ag was
simply wrapped around the pole
and opted not to investigate any
further — but suspicions really
fl ared once her business partner
and the bakery’s manager came in
the following day.
“My manager was the one that
noticed,” Weiner said. “He came
back in and said, ‘Someone cut the
fl ag. They just took scissors and
sliced across it.’”
Weiner’s team believes the vandal
hit the bakery at some point
between Sunday evening and early
Monday morning, though video
surveillance cameras on site are
not angled towards the fl ag — leaving
them unable to defi nitively determine
when it happened.
The team published a post on
Instagram and Facebook showing
the damaged fl ag and expressed
disbelief that someone would bother
chopping up a welcoming sym-
➤ BAKERY VANDAL, continued on p.23
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