A North Texas couple plans to host Keller and Southlake’s first Pride festival this weekend amid backlash from local GOP leaders and Keller’s mayor.
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Festival co-founder April Dreyson, who said she has lived in Keller for most of her life, said she’s long wanted to host a pride festival in the area. St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, located in Southlake near the Southlake-Keller border, is providing the space for the event on Saturday.
Dreyson, who owns an events company with her wife, Shaina Dreyson, said there are many LGBTQ people in Keller, and she hopes the festival will provide a safe and joyful space for the local community. “When a lot of the world is wishing harm on them, [this] is so important,” she said.
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Plans for the festival have drawn criticism from local leaders. Keller Mayor Armin Mizani said on X that the city of Keller does not condone the event. When reached for comment, Mizani, who is running for a Texas House seat as a Republican, shared a copy of his X statement.
“Though promoted as ‘family-friendly,’ the event’s musical acts and programming suggest an agenda aimed at exposing children to inappropriate, highly sexualized content. That’s unacceptable,” Mizani said in the statement.
Mizani highlighted a Texas bill, known as the “drag ban,” which was passed in 2023 and sought to ban “sexually oriented performances” in front of those under 18. He said the event appeared to violate “both the spirit and the letter” of that law.
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U.S. District Judge David Hittner ruled that the law was unconstitutional in September 2023. Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office appealed the decision. The law remains blocked until the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit issues a final ruling, according to the ACLU.
In an email to The Dallas Morning News, Mizani urged Texas lawmakers to modify the law so it could be enforced.
Bo French, Tarrant County GOP chair, condemned a drag queen and transgender woman who was scheduled to perform at the event but has since dropped out.
“The transgender and rap artist known as ‘Madame Lexical,’ will be performing at a child-friendly gay pride event next Saturday at St Martin-in-the-fields Episcopal Church in Keller,” French wrote on X. “He has a history of threatening violence against conservatives and mocking Christianity in grotesquely obscene ways.”
French highlighted several of Madame Lexical’s lyrics, which included references to sex, gender-affirming surgery and gun violence. French did not respond to multiple phone requests and an emailed request for comment.
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Dreyson said Madame Lexical was planning to perform one song about the challenges of being transgender in Odessa. “We heard her sing that song at an interfaith concert that we went to … and it was so beautiful and so moving, and had me just bawling my eyes out,” Dreyson said.
“Kids should not listen to those other songs, obviously,” she said. “But she’s not unsafe because she makes that music.”
The Texas Coalition for Kids, a nonprofit that says it defends children from “the woke left,” is planning to protest the event, according to posts on Facebook. The coalition did not respond to a request for comment on Facebook, and a Wednesday phone call to its executive director, Kelly Neidert, was not returned.
When the Dreysons first proposed a local pride festival, they worried that it would be too hard to find a city-owned space willing to host a large event. Then they met rector Alan Bentrup, who leads St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church.
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A screen shot of a livestream of an Aug. 9, 2020 church service at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Southlake. Church members were outside in their cars for the first in-person service since February.
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Bentrup told The News he suggested to the couple hosting a festival on church property. Bentrup said the church sees about 150 people on a typical Sunday. He said the church’s vestry, which includes people with a range of political perspectives, unanimously voted in favor of letting festival organizers use a field on church property for the event.
Bentrup said the church sees the festival as one of many ways church members seek to be good neighbors. The church also lets a local soccer team use its field five nights a week, and lets an Alcoholics Anonymous group meet in its building.
He said he hasn’t always believed that Christianity accepts gay marriages. He changed his stance after meeting a gay man, during his time at Virginia Theological Seminary. Bentrup said he believed the man was clearly called to be a priest.
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Bentrup said he wants to reach out to people who have not felt welcomed by the Christian church as a whole. “If we can open up and say: ‘Jesus loves you and Jesus sees you’ — we see that that’s what we’re called to do,” he said. “That’s what Jesus did in the Bible: He saw people, and he celebrated with them and he had dinner with them and he walked with them.”
Dreyson said about 700 people and about 104 vendors are registered to attend the festival. Vendors include nonprofits focused on the LGBTQ community, as well as jewelry makers, artists and food trucks.