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Two popular gay clubs in the French Quarter are hosting a "vaxxtravaganza" — an outdoor block party to promote public health on Wednesday, Aug. 24 from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Health officials will be at Oz and and Cafe Lafitte’s in Exile to distribute both monkeypox and COVID-19 vaccines, in addition to providing STI screenings, HIV testing and overdose prevention resources. The event is part of a broader effort to curb the spread of the monkeypox virus as the city gears up for the Southern Decadence festival, which is expected to bring in thousands of visitors for a weekend...

The producer of the Bourbon Street Extravaganza, one of Southern Decadence’s signature events, has canceled the free outdoor concert over concerns about the monkeypox virus. Thousands of revelers were expected to gather Sept. 3 at the corner of Bourbon and St. Ann streets outside the gay bar Napoleon’s Itch to hear dance music diva Jeanie Tracy and other singers. This was to have been the Bourbon Street Extravaganza’s celebratory return after two years of cancellations prompted by the COVID pandemic.

Police say they yelled anti-gay slurs over bullhorns during a demonstration Using a city law passed just last year, police in New Orleans arrested nine preachers for an anti-gay demonstration during Southern Decadence festivities in the French Quarter over the weekend. Eight of the men were arrested on suspicion of aggressive solicitation under an ordinance that prohibits 'any person or group of persons to loiter or congregate on Bourbon Street for the purpose of disseminating any social, political or religious message between the hours of sunset and sunrise.' A ninth man was arrested on suspicion of battery, resisting an officer...

The arrival of Hurricane Isaac exactly seven years after Hurricane Katrina blasted New Orleans has some people wondering if there’s more to it than random chance, and suggesting the popular homosexual festival Southern Decadence may be part of a judgment from God. “A hurricane hitting a celebration of decadence … twice in seven years. What are the odds?” asks Robin Cox, a lifelong Gulf Coast resident. “Does it seem God has it in for New Orleans?” adds Mary Starkey. “Just contemplating why this has happened twice in seven years at exact same time of year.”

What began as a simple going-away party on Barracks Street in 1972 has evolved into one of New Orleans' premier yearly events: Southern Decadence. Held annually in the French Quarter over Labor Day weekend, this celebration of GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) culture has begun attracting as many as 125,000-135,000 participants from all over the world in recent years.

onathan Bray, one of the organizers of Southern Decadence, a celebration that has become known as the gay Mardi Gras, spent his time this week getting ready for the big party and watching weather reports. "I looked out in the Gulf and didn't see a storm," Bray said. "No Katrina, no Gustav. I'm so happy." In the almost four decades since it started, Southern Decadence has become a traditional Labor Day weekend, end-of-summer, event. But for two of the last four years, hurricanes crashed the French Quarter-centered party. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Gustav last year both generated evacuation orders...

Gustav aside, preparations for the annual Southern Decadence party are underway today in the French Quarter. It is the first day of the five-day Southern Decadence celebration in New Orleans' French Quarter. The Greater New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau calls it a long weekend of parties, parades and gay pride, as well as one of the oldest and largest gatherings of gays in the country. This is the 37th Southern Decadence in New Orleans. Each year there are protests of the event, which this year is promoting attractions like "the most amazing group of porn stars ever assembled for...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The gay community plans to paint the town pink and green this weekend, just days after the ceremonies that marked the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Jonathan Bray, an organizer of Southern Decadence, and others see the festival — a weekend-long gay and lesbian tradition known for its parties and parade featuring flamboyant costumes — as a step in the rebirth of a city deluged by floodwaters one year ago. "This time last year, we didn't know whether the city was going to survive; nobody knew," Bray said. "It's been a tremendous uphill battle to exist...

(August 13, 2006)--A suburban New Orleans pastor says he believes Hurricane Katrina put the "fear of God" into the city, but he isn't sure that will last. The Rev. Grant Storms of The Reformer Church in Metairie, La., says New Orleans is a more sober city, literally and spiritually, than it was before Katrina struck. He hopes New Orleans' French Quarter will now shed its immoral image and become a place that families won't be afraid to visit. But Storms notes that the annual Southern Decadence festival is scheduled to begin on Aug. 30, the day after the first anniversary...

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s devastating damage to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, everyone is turned to those suffering from this great disaster. However, while Louisiana families suffered, participants in the homosexual festival called “Southern Decadence” reveled in the streets of Lafayette, La. The TFP protested the celebration of an unofficial “Southern Decadence in Exile” event held in downtown Lafayette at 5 p.m. on September 7. The event is often characterized by lewd behavior, wild revelry and public indecency. Four dozen souls made an act of reparation before a statue of Our Lady of the Assumption, Patroness of...

For the second time this week, homosexuals held a "gay"-pride parade in Louisiana, a state that suffered catastrophic damage by Hurricane Katrina. Last night's event took place in the city of Lafayette, where events were renamed "Southern Decadence in Exile" after the storm canceled last week's "Southern Decadence," a tradition that began in 1972. The parade commenced a few minutes late from its 5 p.m. start time, but that didn't seem to bother participants. "Queens are always late," Levy Easterly, 43, of New Orleans, told the Daily Advertiser. "And we need time to get a buzz." Robert Baxter, one of...

AUSTIN, Texas -- Like many of you who love New Orleans, I find myself taking short mental walks there today, turning a familiar corner, glimpsing a favorite scene, square or vista. And worrying about the beloved friends and the city, and how they are now. To use a fine Southern word, it's tacky to start playing the blame game before the dead are even counted. It is not too soon, however, to make a point that needs to be hammered home again and again, and that is that government policies have real consequences in people's lives. This is not "just...

Despite the devastation and ongoing suffering by thousands from Hurricane Katrina, homosexuals paraded on Bourbon Street in New Orleans over the weekend, and have rescheduled their "Southern Decadence" event for tomorrow. "It's New Orleans, man. We're going to celebrate," Matt Menold, a 23-year musician wearing a sombrero and a guitar slung on his back, told the Associated Press. An account of the small parade on the homosexual newssite 365gay.com noted: It was a scene like something from a Fellini movie. Amid the death, the destruction, and suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina a small parade behind a tattered rainbow...

Religious groups demand an end to New Orleans' Southern Decadence Festival NEW ORLEANS -- The wet Jockey shorts contest will be followed by drag queen fashion shows, the Mr. Louisiana Leather 2004 Contest and thousands of gay men drinking a whole lot of alcohol. The Southern Decadence Festival started in the French Quarter for the 32nd straight year on Wednesday and will draw an estimated 110,000 people, mainly gay men, from around the world. To the participants, Decadence is the ultimate Bourbon Street blowout, full of good, not-so-clean fun. But to a growing number of religious leaders, it's a sinister...

NEW ORLEANS — You know a city has legs when three or four dozen of them are parading down Bourbon Street — some clad in tutus and grass skirts — six days after the most damaging hurricane in American history. But the annual Southern Decadence parade through the heart of the French Quarter stops for nothing — not even Katrina. "Hey, we've got to keep our morale up, too," said Jill Sandars, aka "Jelly Sandwich," her "Quarter" name. Resplendent in a fluffy red skirt, dark hat and small black umbrella, she strutted and sang with 15 to 20 other storm...

FOR A LABOR DAY WEEKEND LOADED with glam, gangsters and girth, New Orleans’ French Quarter is the place to be. The 34th annual Southern Decadence festival, which evolved over the years from a party for a few friends to a six-day street party attended by more than 100,000 people, runs this year from Aug. 31 to Sept. 5. Unofficially dubbed the “gay Mardi Gras,” Southern Decadence is filled with dozens of parties and thousands of uninhibited gay men frolicking in the street in search of beads and brethren. The event culminates with a Sept. 4 parade featuring elaborate and...

Hurricane Katrina walloped New Orleans just two days before the annual homosexual "Southern Decadence" festival was to begin in the town, an act being characterized by some as God's work. Southern Decadence has a history of "filling the French Quarters section of the city with drunken homosexuals engaging in sex acts in the public streets and bars," says a statement from the Philadelphia Christian organization Repent America. This year's 34th annual Southern Decadence festival, which drew 125,000 revelers last year, was set to begin today in the Big Easy and run through Monday. As writer John d'Addario explained in "Southern...