#2 Thing to be Proud of: Gay Pride
Saturday June 2, 2007
As silly as it seems, Gay Pride makes me proud. I love to go downtown every year and watch the parade. It's so inspiring to me to watch the Dykes on Bikes, the PFLAG moms and the LGBT youth and employee groups all come together for one day to celebrate who we are as a community. Especially now, when we have people trying to pass laws to take away our relationship rights, to try and prevent us from becoming parents and to even prevent us from having civil rights protections. Gay Pride is a time to just come together, to celebrate, to be happy, to be colorful, to be gay!
What is Gay Pride all about? Gay Pride 101.
Why do we celebrate Gay Pride in June? Learn about the history of Gay Pride.
Where will you celebrate Gay Pride? Here's your Gay Pride 2007 calendar.
© Photo by Kathy Belge
Comments
I remember going to my first pride parade as a kid in NYC. I was fascinated by the concept. Amazed that there were others like myself however, I was very angry as well at many in the parade. As a teen I was amazed how a group of people who want the rest of the world to acknowledge them and accept who they are would act like total asses. I understand the concept of HERE I AM ACCEPT ME FOR WHO I AM. But at my first pride I felt nothing but embarrassment and anger at those who in my opinion degraded themselves and the cause. Some of the behavior will ALWAYS set US back from main stream America. We want to be accepted by main stream but until we clean up our act at pride we will never be fully accepted because main stream America will always assume (NOTE FOR THE RECORD ASS-U-ME)we are nothing but sexual deviants. They will never acknowledge that 99.8% (just like main stream America) are upstanding normal human beings who just want the same rights granted to us that are denied to us because we happen to love someone of the same sex.
I know my comments will anger some people but please look at the big picture. Ask yourselves in most news coverage and newspapers across the country - How is pride depicted? What pictures do they show? Does that coverage represent you?
I know sure as hell it does NOT represent me or my partner.
At last someone has voiced what I have thought for years. As much as I believe it is the media’s depiction of us, I tend to agree that we could represent ourselves better. We can’t all be the exact same type of people. Diversity is what makes us great, but we could try to be more mainstream.
You think you could also look at Global pride? I know that this is a predominantly American website, but I thought it would be cool. In South Africa, we’re celebrating in October (and this will likely be the first year I’ll be able to go!).
Otherwise, it’s great to read about Pride in the U.S, because I love to see other gays and lesbians celebrating who they are. ^-^