Mistake has New Orleans hosting National Baptists, gays same weekend

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (RNS) — A pure accident of convention scheduling will usher 35,000 Baptists into New Orleans just as Southern Decadence weekend reaches the gaudy height of its public celebration of gay pride next year.

Both events are tied to Labor Day: Southern Decadence by custom and the annual meeting of the National Baptist Convention by order of its constitution.

The church meeting, which features five days of singing, Bible study, preaching and some street witnessing by Baptists from throughout the country, begins Labor Day, Sept. 6, the climax of Southern Decadence weekend, which begins Sept. 1.

At a City Hall news conference to announce the meeting, Baptist pastors, hospitality industry officials and Mayor Ray Nagin indulged in some good-natured chuckling about the healthy effect 35,000 churchgoing conventioneers would have on the local economy – even if they were not disposed to sample a full measure of the city’s night life.

No one mentioned Southern Decadence, the private five-day celebration that fills the French Quarter with gay entertainments, including a full measure of cross-dressing, feathered boas and deliberately outrageous displays of camp.