Don't misunderstand -- we should expect the Pride Festival to be managed well and to be solvent. But isn't that the minimum standard? The floor? Should there be more to Pride than business competence?
An Economist article recounts the Simpsons episode where:
A FEW years ago, a Gay Pride parade passed The Simpsons' house in Springfield. “We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!” chanted the marchers. Little Lisa Simpson replied: “You do this every year. We are used to it.
I'm not an enemy of Pride. I think the Festival in DC is valuable in bringing out the community and allies. It helps us network, make partnerships and friends and helps our organizations find new members and supporters.
I think Pride fails dismally at helping preserve and promote our political history and political priorities. How many people of the younger generation know we celebrate Pride in June because that's when the Stonewall riots took place? How many know what really happened at Stonewall? Or care, for that matter?
Maybe it's not important. Maybe the younger generation doesn't need to know, because, for many of them, being openly gay is no big deal, to them or their straight friends. They don't remember a time when just going to a Gay Pride event was a political statement in itself, that attending the festival when it was in the park behind the Francis school was truly a liberating moment from the workaday closet.
Maybe Lisa is right -- they are used to it -- and Gay Pride doesn't need to be significant anymore. Maybe solvency is the goal, after all.
1 comment:
Perhaps it's not gay pride that people are used to, but the parades, which are a ubiquitous symbol of that pride. People see the floats and the extravagance on their tv screens and in their streets every year. Perhaps it's time to focus the gay pride toward something new.
Instead of a gay pride parade, maybe we should have a comprehensive, appropriately mild gay pride legislative agenda. Take advantage of people warming up to homosexuality and opening their institutions to us. "We're here, we're queer, give us our rights."
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