Last week, I posted a question on my Facebook page: “A week from this Sunday is Gay Pride in Philly. Are you ready?”
It was a simple question. I had no idea of the reaction or comments it would receive.
Some 50 comments later, I was left with mixed emotions, hence the title of this column.
A little LGBT history lesson is in order to put this in perspective. The first Gay Pride march was in New York City on June 28, 1970. We organized that march to commemorate The Stonewall Riots, which took place the year before. That represented to us that we could fight back against oppression and that we were proud of our community and, to prove that, we marched across the city from Christopher Street to Central Park’s Sheep Meadow. We had no idea if anyone would show up. Thousands did.
At about 23rd Street, I climbed a pole and I still could see marchers coming out of Christopher Street — some 15 blocks away. The chills that went down my spine — I felt them again when we entered Sheep Meadow and the people just kept coming — were my strongest-ever feeling of pride.
Now, think of your first gay-pride march or parade. I bet you to had a similar experience — a feeling that you were not alone and a sense of community. That is what gay pride is all about.
That simple sense of pride has now become global. In many countries, gay-pride celebrations are the only time gays try to assemble. Sometimes they go to jail. In Poland and Hungary, it takes 2,000 police to protect the marchers from protesters. In Budapest, the police erect an 8-foot chain fence the entire length of the parade to protect the marchers. And in Moscow, the mayor refuses to give them a permit; when they dare march, there is no protection and they are beaten and jailed. For those marchers, it is not only a march of pride, it is a march of defiance.
Many of us from the original march might be unhappy with the way some of the marches have lost their roots, but we still understand the need for those marches. It’s all about that one person feeling a sense of pride in his/herself for the first time and pride in their community.
As for me and the others from those early years, we continue to communicate. We have an email group that has taken on the air of a Gay Liberation Front meeting. Each time there’s one in my inbox, it brings a smile to my face. We’ll most likely debate almost any item in our community, but one thing we have given the world and have ourselves is pride. To all of you, I wish you happy Gay Pride!
Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached at [email protected] .