Three Twins Ice Cream founder Neal Gottlieb joins Sonoma County Pride

Here’s how to join in on Sonoma County pride celebrations.|

MARY CALLAHAN

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

June 2, 2016

Here's where to celebrate

In Guerneville:

First Friday Art Walk, 5-8 p.m. Friday, downtown Guerneville.

Country/Western Dance, 8 p.m.-midnight Friday, $10, Guerneville Vet's Hall.

Pool Party and Beer Bust, noon-4:30 p.m. Saturday, $15, r3 Hotel, Guerneville.

Disco Dance, 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Saturday, $10, Guerneville Vets' Hall.

Pride Parade, 11 a.m. Sunday, downtown Guerneville.

Pride Festival, noon-6 p.m. Sunday, $5 donation, Guerneville Lodge.

In Sebastopol:

Pride of Sebastopol LGBTQI Dance, Saturday, June 11, 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Sebastopol Area Senior Center, 167 N. High St., Sebastopol. $10 admission. 21 and over.

Sebastopol Women & Pride Festival, 2-9 p.m. Saturday, June 11, Miss Daisy's Magical Wonderland, 790 Hurlbut Ave., $30 through June 8 at northbaylscene.com/apps/webstore, $40 at the door.

In Santa Rosa:

“Beautiful by Night” film screening, 3 p.m. Saturday, $20; and Gatsby-themed celebration 2-5 p.m. June 12, free. Both at Fountaingrove Lodge, Santa Rosa. Reserve space at 634-7423.

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Special coverage:Sonoma Pride

Three Twins Ice Cream founder Neal Gottlieb will take part Sunday in the Sonoma County Pride Parade in Guerneville with a combination of delight and profound honor, fresh from a trip up North Carolina’s tallest peak to plant a rainbow-striped outhouse and transgender flag.

The North Bay ice cream maker and outdoorsman hastily constructed the wooden privy in April to protest new discriminatory restroom restrictions in that state. He staged a similar feat in Uganda two years earlier, when he mounted a smuggled pride flag in the snow at 16,763 feet to protest the African nation’s criminalization of homosexuality.

Gottlieb’s LGBT advocacy has earned him a place as one of three grand marshals for Sunday’s Pride Parade, joining Russian River clean-up activist Chris Brokate and Jim Longacre, aka Sister Sparkle Plenty, a founding member of the Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

Gottlieb said he changed travel plans in order to participate because “I couldn’t say no.”

The annual parade caps days of festivities that bring hundreds of revelers to the lower river region to honor and promote diversity in all its shades and variations - gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex.

The parade and festival last year drew 1,250 people from as far away as San Francisco and Sacramento, said Sonoma County Pride president Chuck Ramsey.

The county has a 29-year tradition of Pride celebrations, Ramsey said. Similar events held around the nation during June commemorate the Stonewall riot that erupted June 28, 1969, after a police raid on a gay bar in New York City.

Ramsey said it’s important to remember that the fight continues - to wit, North Carolina’s bathroom law targeting transgender individuals.

Gottlieb said his being invited to participate in the parade acknowledges the breadth of the movement and the need for everyone to get behind it. He also expects to have a good time.

“The funny thing about all this is I’m a straight guy, so I really take as a great honor,” Gottlieb said, adding that he stumbled into Guerneville during the pride festival a few years back and just loved it.

“It’s like small town Americana in the gayest possible way.”