Marietta to host gay pride festival

By Janel Davis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The city of Marietta will host The Marietta Rainbow Festival on Saturday, the first gay pride celebration held in the city.

The festival, put on by the North Georgia Rainbow Coalition, is being promoted as a family-friendly free event. Activities begin at noon at the  El Mariachi Nightclub in the Nazareth Plaza Shopping Center on Franklin. Activities will also be held at in the parking lot of LeBuzz, a popular gay bar,  with deejays, bands and drag shows. The festival then move inside LeBuzz for a dance party until 3 a.m.

The gay pride festival is a change for Cobb County. In 1993 the county commission passed a resolution condemning the "gay lifestyle". The anti-gay resolution led to activists protesting Cobb as a volleyball event location of the 1996 Olympics. As a result, Olympic organizers pulled the event from Cobb and the route for the Olympic torch bypassed the county.