Source: Edmonton Sun, Calgary Herald, Xtra West, Calgary Sun, MetroNews
After yesterday's annual Gay Pride parade in Alberta's capital city, Murray Billett, a gay activist and member of the Edmonton Police Commission, recalled for the Edmonton Sun the small crowd on Whyte Avenue, where Edmonton's first Gay Pride parade took place.

"I think Edmonton has become a more sophisticated, a more respectful city and I'm really proud to be part of it," said Billett, who was in the parade riding in a police commission's vehicle.

Former city councilor Michael Phair told the Sun that the Pride celebration in Edmonton has come a long way in two decades. "I think the first year, there were probably 200 of us and a few people on the walkway and that's about it," Phair recalled. "Today, I'm guessing 1,500 people in the parade and probably 6,000 watching, which is a great deal," said Phair.

Francis Hyde was celebrating two special occasions Saturday: His pride as a member of the gay and lesbian community and Father's Day.

"What a nice coincidence to have both important aspects of my life fall on the same weekend," the 34-year-old dad told the Edmonton Sun as he watched Edmonton's annual Pride Parade Saturday featuring the city's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

About 40 floats paraded on Jasper Avenue this year, the Sun reports.

Unlike in previous years, there were no visible parade protesters according to the Sun.

It's the second weekend of Pride for the Rocky Mountain province. Last weekend on what the Calgary Herald called a "rainy and dismal day", thousands of people nonetheless turned out up north for Calgary's 19th annual Pride Festival and Parade.

Kent Hehr, a member of the Alberta legislative assembly, sported a cowboy hat and neon green shirt for the festivities, the Herald reports.

"Let's face it. It's a great day to celebrate inclusion," he said.

Hehr has long worked with the GLBT community and believes, while Calgarians are beginning to embrace diverse lifestyles, the government needs to step up its game.

"Alberta is moving in the right direction, but the government is a little behind and, to a certain extent, is holding back the people," he said.

Now in its 18th year in Calgary, Pride has proven to be an ever-expanding endeavor, Vancouver's gay paper, Xtra West reports. Pride Calgary representative Dallas Barnes notes that the festival has been both a challenge and a blessing.

"I have been astonished by the support of the community, businesses, and political organizations, and by the overwhelming efforts of our volunteers," says Barnes.

And while Pride celebrations have generally become a time to mark advances, a column this weekend in the Calgary Sun takes a look at the cloudy side of things in Alberta.

The publisher of gay papers in both Calgary, the largest city in the province, and Edmonton, the capital, is quoted with a somewhat darker view of progress in the province whose majestic mountains became the movie set for Brokeback Mountain.

In his 3 1/2 decades in the city, Calgary native Steve Polyak has seen his city grow exponentially and attitudes towards homosexuals mellow -- frustratingly slowly, according to Calgary Sun columnist Bill Kaufmann.

Polyak's publication -- Gay Calgary -- has done well enough, Kaufmann reports, but it's been a noticeably tough slog in a city Polyak insists, according to the columnist, still deserves its redneck tag.

Finding friendly venues for the magazine has been a struggle with whole stands full of copies routinely tossed in the trash soon after they're delivered, Polyak told the Sun columnist.

At one site, "a little old lady grabbed all the copies right after we'd left them and got rid of them," he says.

Distributors who at one time refused to carry their work on moral grounds would reverse themselves only when forced to by a new contract.

Some brand the monthly magazine pornography, but Polyak takes his cue from what's tolerated heterosexually on Safeway's magazine shelves -- the Maxim test, he says.

The operation also publishes a version in Alberta's capital "and we have a lot more locations in Edmonton ... it's a lot different there, like night and day."

Polyak notes that voters in Edmonton elected an openly gay city councilor, Michael Phair, in 1992 while Police Commissioner Murray Billet has been known as a homosexual activist.

Kaufmann writes that Polyak says that Calgary is still far from the kind of acceptance seen in the capital. 

Kaufmann writes that other members of Calgary's gay community insist the massive influx of people in recent years has done nothing to change that. If anything, some newcomers find a comfort zone in Calgary for their bigotry. Some gays actually believe it's gotten worse.

In fact, a report released last week by Statistics Canada indicated that Calgary might be a hotbed of hate: The reported level of hate crimes against LGBT people there was was three times the national average, with 9.1 incidents per 100,000 population, Calgary Herald reports.

But many pointed out that the statistics gathered by different cities are hard to compare because police forces use different standards of reporting. Others point to a silver lining, saying that LGBT people in Calgary might be more comfortable reporting incidents to the police.

“I think it’s good and bad. It’s bad because it is unfortunate we have hate crimes in the city but it’s good because it shows people have enough faith to come forward,” Cnst. Lynn MacDonald of the Diversities Unit told reporters, MetroNews reports.

“Calgary is a big city but there is no reason other big city numbers shouldn’t be around the same,” she added.

Full article: Gay Pride parade comes of age | Edmonton Sun
Overcast skies can't dampen Calgary Pride | Xtra West
Pride festival hits the streets | Calgary Herald
Tough place to be gay | Calgary Sun
Is Calgary a hotbed of hate? | Calgary Herald
Calgary highest in hate crimes | MetroNews