TAYLOR, Texas — For decades, locals have flooded Downtown Taylor for the city's annual holiday parade, but because of disagreements about who's allowed in the parade, there will now be two parades on Dec. 3.
Denise Rodgers, Taylor Pride co-founder, said the group participated in the 2021 "Parade of Lights."
"We participated with an overwhelming and positive response from the crowd," said Rodgers. "So, it was exciting. So, of course, we were excited to do it again this year."
However, this year, when Rodgers went to apply to enter their float to the parade, the Taylor Area Ministerial Alliance (TAMA) added verbiage to the application saying that that floats that apply should not contradict the organization's biblical and family values.
"And so, we reached out to the City because they are co-sponsors, and we just wanted to ensure that they understood or were aware of this discriminatory verbiage that had been added," said Rodgers.
TAMA said it was originally an oversight and, this year, they made it clear they will not let Taylor Pride participate.
"The group that has done the parade in the past and put it on came up with some rules and regulations that were more exclusionary than they had been in the past," said Stacey Osborne, City of Taylor communications director.
TAMA posted on Facebook that Taylor Pride had two men dressed as women in last year's parade, and that wasn't in line with TAMA's beliefs.
"We had two drag queens on our float last year," said Rodgers. "Very appropriately dressed and very appropriately performing. Very age-appropriate and family-friendly drag queens in general.
In response to this, the City will now host its own parade right after TAMA's.
"We represent everyone in the city," said Osborne. "And we wanted everyone to be welcome, and we wanted everyone to be able to participate in the celebration and the parade."
The City of Taylor's "The Very Merry Holiday Celebration" will be held Saturday, Dec. 3, at 7 pm. For more information, click here.