It’s summer and Pride is in the air.  The earliest gay pride festival in Southern California is Long Beach Pride in May.  I remember writing about my first Pride experience some years ago, maybe 2002. I didn’t see the parade because it is always scheduled on a Sunday morning which conflicts to my commitment to worship. But I did visit the Long Beach Pride event. I wrote a response online and my views remain basically the same today. Even then, as now, the concept of Gay Pride seemed to be lost in an emphasis upon hyper sexuality, drunkenness, exhibitionism and what seemed to me to be the experimental fringe of what the gay community is about. Unfortunately those are the very things that monopolize the attention of the media and which create the stereotypes of what defines being gay or what has become the LGBTQQIAA alphabet soup.

Most of us are not young, hung, hirsute (or smooth as you prefer), built like Greek gods, covered with piercings and tattoos and high on some substance or another.  Most of us are not hedonists, or … insert fetish here ______. Most of us are not perfectly coiffed, dressed according to the latest trends, depillitated, well appointed financially and socially. Many of us are partnered for years, hold down jobs and have families. Most of us are just average human beings whose actions and appearance are pretty much indistinguishable from everybody else.

Gay Pride festivals make little or no reference to gay history, to those who sacrificed to bring us to the level of acceptance and respect that we enjoy today. There is little to solicit involvement in political, social or humanitarian causes. There is little or no reaching out to the un-gay community. They remain largely very self centered.

I believe that the GAY Pride events should be reminders us of and celebrations of our history and the advances that have been made. They should be places to encourage involvement in worthy causes in our community and outside our community. They should focus upon building bridges rather than shocking the straight community with outrageous behaviors and reinforcing stereotypes. They need to reach out and affirm those who are questioning their identity and place in the world. They need to offer support and resources to those who have been hurt and even abandoned by their family, friends, church and social circle, who have been bullied or humiliated in school and the workplace. Those who are “different” should find a place of safety and acceptance, where they can lower their defenses, their protective shields and just be unapologetically themselves and discover that there are others just like them.  These should be the themes and objectives of Pride.

Internal homophobia is real, alive and pervasive in our culture as are drug and alcohol abuse. Self destructive behavior is common in our community. Pride events are places where these things should be acknowledged and talked about.  Again, resources should be available there to help people address their own issues.

There is much to celebrate and there is much left to do. We should use these events to remind our community and the community at large that we are indeed proud of our accomplishments, individually and collectively.  These should be enumerated, and we should rejoice in them.  But the work is not done and pride is only one component.  Let’s use these events to talk about acceptance–first inside our own skin and second, by everyone else. It’s about breaking the bondage of self hatred, of feeling like you are a freak and deserving of all the hatred, cruel jokes, abandonment that too often define the lives of those of us who don’t or can’t conform to other people’s expectations and societal norms. When those chains are cast off, it’s not just pride that we celebrate, but exaltation and joy of being simply ourselves.

Is boycotting these events because they fail to represent some group or fall short of the ideals to which we subscribe an effective tactic? That seems to be counterproductive. You don’t win a game by refusing to play. You don’t resolve conflict by denying it exists. If you feel passionate about something, you get involved. Roll up your sleeves, open your wallets, open your mouths, give of your time and talents and advocate for what you feel is important. By getting active in the planning and execution of these events, you are in a position to influence the end result.  If you see a Pride event as a vehicle to bring visibility to whatever is most important to you, then invest yourself in it.