Gay Pride, Gay Courage

June 2001

June is traditionally a time to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall uprising where in drag queens, bar patrons, and street riff raff stood up to anti-gay police harassment. And for over three decades the rallying cry of June’s marches and events has been “gay pride.”

The emphasis on pride has been understandable. Generations had been raised to believe gay sex acts unmentionably shameful. Pride was a useful antidote to such crippling shame, and June’s events have helped many step out of self-imposed, suffocating closets.

But as we watch so many gay institutions stray from their original liberationist beginnings, assertions of “gay pride” can now provoke a certain unease. When rallies become little more than marketing opportunities for rainbow hoopla, what is there to be proud of? And how can we be proud of our political organizations? They have so devolved that they actually endorse “sex offender” laws aimed at warehousing those now branded the real queers– boylovers, bush sex aficionados, S and M practitioners.

“Gay pride” has, regrettably, been all-too-frequently co-opted into a brand identity, ironically sanitized of any of the sexual assertiveness it originally had. Rather than boisterous challenges to corrupt and deadening sexual values, June’s marches and parades have largely become exercises in demonstrating how unthreatening we are, how little we differ from straight society.

But while much of the meaningful pride has been sapped out of June’s dumbed-down events, there is another aspect of the modern gay experience that we can celebrate: gay courage.

The Stonewall rioters weren’t looking to become heroes– they anticipated beatings, jail, fines, and lost jobs. But they stood up and fought back. The Boston Boise Committee organized to challenge– and depose– a self-serving district attorney engaged in anti-gay witch hunts aimed at t-room sex and boylovers. The BBC’s defense of such political pariahs demonstrated gay courage in the face of long odds and enormous disapproval. As HIV and AIDS threatened both life and liberty, hundreds of ACT UP members engaged in civil disobedience, brave actions that forced better treatment and protected civil liberties. And, of course, countless individuals have found the strength to come out and speak up, knowing that doing so brings great personal risk.

Gay people have somehow found the courage to stand up for personal and political justice, even when others caution that “now is not the time,” that rocking the boat is too risky, that we’ll lose what gains we’ve made. And they’ve done so even when success seemed hopeless.

More than ever, the world needs gay courage. The US incarcerates a record number of people; millions of people rot in the prisons of the world’s wealthiest nation. Though it’s difficult to see how to halt the prisonmania that grips our culture, we need the gay courage to demand an end to this tragic and inhumane waste.

A record number of those imprisoned are charged with consensual sex “crimes.” We must find the gay courage to stand with these political castaways, to say their struggle is our struggle.

And though effective anti-HIV treatments are available, economics and trade agreements mean tens of millions of sick people in poor countries will die because the medicine needed to save their lives is prohibitively expensive. Gay courage must lead us to a world wherein governments and economies serve people, not the other way around.

This June, if all the insurance company banners and merchandising logos fail to inspire pride in your local “pride” events, consider participating anyway, dedicating yourself to commemorating the gay courage that has made all these gatherings possible. Let’s remember that only gay courage leaves a legacy worthy of gay pride.

Pasted from <http://guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=1A08B91B-499C-11D5-A7C100A0C9D84F02>