Nashville Pride announced its gay pride festival will take place on June 27th.
The festival date comes after questions about whether Nashville Pride could put on another parade in 2026, following a budget shortfall last year.
Nashville Pride said it faced a $250,000 deficit after losing 40 percent of its sponsorship revenue in 2024. Some of the sponsors who dropped out in 2025 included Nissan and Jack Daniel’s, Cracker Barrel, and Dollar General.
The nonprofit said it needed to raise $250,000 by October 11th, 2025, to put on the event this year. However, Nashville Pride only raised $145,000 through its Save Nashville Pride campaign.
Despite being $105,000 short of its fundraising goal, the nonprofit said it raised enough money to continue the event.
According to Axios, in a statement, the Nashville Pride board said, “The funds raised will help sustain our historic festival and ensure Nashville’s LGBTQ+ community continues to have a space to be authentically and vulnerably themselves.”
As of Monday, the pride event has 30 sponsors, including the Tennessee Titans, Nashville Predators, Planned Parenthood, and Bridgestone. All of these organizations were sponsors at last year’s event.
This year’s pride event will occur after Governor Bill Lee signed House Joint Resolution 182, designating the month of June as Nuclear Family Month.
The resolution said, “The nuclear family, consisting of one husband, one wife, and any biological, adopted, or fostered children, is God’s design for familial structure and has been the bedrock of society since the creation of the world.”
“The nuclear family was the basic building block of Tennessee’s society throughout her formative years,” it added. “The nuclear family built the United States of America and created prosperity within our nation.”
In response to Lee doing this, GLAAD, a national LGBTQ nonprofit, claimed state lawmakers were attempting to “exclude and intentionally harm” non-traditional households.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at zschmidt1717@gmail.com.
