Members of Naper Pride are expected to turn out at Tuesday’s Downers Grove Village Council meeting to support the village’s LGBTQ+ community following a request two weeks ago to end Pride Month in the village.

Naper Pride, an LGBTQ+ support group based in Naperville, asked its members to show up at the May 19 Downers Grove Village Council meeting and the May 27 Downers Grove Library Board meeting.

“Downers Grove is a diverse community, and public institutions should serve and support all residents regardless of identity, orientation or beliefs,” according to a Naper Pride Facebook post. “Pride celebrations and inclusive programming help ensure that LGBTQ+ residents, families and youth know they belong here too.”

“Please show up, speak out and support a community built on respect, inclusion and equality. Pride didn’t start out as a party. It started out as a responsibility, one that all of those at Stonewall accepted for each other. They stood together and they said no more. Now it’s our responsibility, our turn. Will you stand with your community?”

The call to attend the May 27 Library Board meeting is designed “to support inclusive programming and public spaces that welcome everyone,” according to the Facebook post.

The request to end Pride Month in Downers Grove was made at the May 5 Village Council meeting by Ilene Briner, who said the village’s proclamation “caters to only one genre of thought on sexuality and gender.”

“Pride month is elevated, but [there is] no comparable month-long celebration for Christian perspectives on family, marriage or biological reality,” said Briner, a longtime resident.

“The village is, in effect, discriminating against most everyone else,” she said.

“It selects one contested ideology for official honor and public prominence while leaving the beliefs of the broader population unrecognized.”

Resident Laura Hois, a Republican candidate for state representative, seconded Briner’s request that the Downers Grove Village Council no longer proclaim June as Pride month.

Hois said Tuesday that she and Briner have been thanked by many Downers Grove residents for asking that village not issue a “proclamation endorsing Pride month.”

“They view it as inappropriate for local government to officially celebrate adult lifestyle choices, specifically homosexuality and transgender ideology, while traditional community-wide proclamations honor veterans, first responders and law enforcement. These are conservative taxpayers who simply want their elected officials to respect a broader range of viewpoints rather than endorsing one contested ideology,” Hois said in a written response.

She added that her request “exposed how one-sided this issue has become in DuPage County. The strong pushback from Naper Pride and other groups shows that any resistance to their agenda is immediately met with organized mobilization. Meanwhile, many residents who disagree have been sidelined or ignored for years.”

“The evidence is now overwhelming that so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ causes irreversible harm. Children cannot fully comprehend the lifelong consequences of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or surgeries.”

Commissioner Leslie Sadowski-Fugitt said there’s a good reason why Pride month exists and celebrates the LGBTQ+ community.

“Calling someone out for just who they exist to be, that’s not an opinion. That is bigotry and the reason why we need [Pride month] and why it matters in this community. We have lost young people to suicide because of this rhetoric,” Sadowski-Fugitt said at the May 5 meeting.

“Being non-LGBTQ is considered the norm. That’s why we don’t need our own little month because we have all of society,” she said.

“We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply, and that’s exactly the case here. Some of the things that were said today were atrocious, and there’s no place in decent society for saying cruel things about people, for implying that somehow an LGBTQ lifestyle is less-than.”

Naper Pride’s Facebook post encouraged community members “to stand with Equality Downers Grove and support our LGBTQ+ neighbors.”

On Friday, Naper Pride added another Facebook post again encouraging individuals to attend the Downers Grove Village Council and Library Board meetings.

Margie Wolf, president of Naper Pride, did not want to be interviewed for this story, saying the group she leads is only striving to support the the LGBTQ+ community in Downers Grove.

“While increasing opposition is something that the LGBTQ+ community faces across the country and around the world, this particular situation is about our neighbors in Downers Grove. It is their voices that we should be amplifying,” Wolf wrote in an email.

“We are just here to support and each other as much as we can. Naper Pride isn’t leading anything, we are standing next to each other.”

The council meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the Downers Grove Civic Center, 850 Curtiss St.

• Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story did not include a response from Laura Hois.