From: "Thomas W. Holt Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 07:38:51 EST

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Date sent:      Sat, 28 May 1994 18:55:02 -0400
From:           PMDAtropos <[email-masked]>

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Why Have A Gay Pride Parade?

by David Nava

"When do we get our parade?"

The question was asked more in fun than with envy, more in joking
than with malice, but it struck a chord with me.  I had casually
mentioned to a couple of my straight friends that the Gay Pride
Parade was coming up and I was looking forward to it.

"What about Straight Pride Day?" the female of the couple asked with
a grin.

"Everyday is Straight Pride Day," I answered, also grinning.  "This
culture celebrates it with gay abandon."  She laughed.

"When do we get our parade?"  demanded her male counterpart.

"Turn the television on."  I said.  "There's your parade."  We all
laughed and went about our business but the brief exchange kept
coming back to me through the week.  The more I thought about it the
more serious it became.

Why have a Gay Pride Parade?  It's a question many straight people
might be asking in the next few weeks.  Gay people, I believe,
inherently, intuitively know why we have a parade.  We have a Gay
Pride Parade because 25 years ago a bunch of drag queens at a bar
called The Stonewall fought back for the first time when the police
overstepped the bounds of their authority for the millionth time,
thereby launching the Gay Liberation Movement.  We have a Gay Pride
Parade so that at least for one day in a year we can walk down the
streets of where we live and show our numbers for all the world to
see.  We have a Gay Pride Parade to celebrate our defeat of The
Closet, to have a day when we can proclaim, without reservation, who
we are and who we love.

So, when do the straight people get their own parade?

When straight people are prevented from marrying the people they
choose to marry, precluded from enjoying tax benefits available to
married people, then they should have a parade.  When straight people
are barred from serving their country in the military, then they
should have a parade.  When straight people are routinely fired from
their jobs because of who they love with or live with then they
should have a parade.  When straight people are blocked from holding
sensitive jobs in the government merely because of their sexual
orientation, then they should have a parade.  When straight people
are forbidden to raise their own children or to adopt others, if they
so choose, then they should have a parade.  When straight people are
beaten, harassed and shot at for holding hands in public then I'll
march in their parade.

A man who lives in my neighborhood was shot on our street 2 years ago
by a carload of young thugs because he was bidding a companion
farewell with an embrace.  The companion was another man.  The Human
Rights Commissioner of
this city publicly intimated that the men were "asking for it"
through engaging in "provocative behavior" by embracing to say
good-bye.  That's why I'll be at The Gay Pride Parade.  Unless we
stand together, march together, care together, no one will do it for
us.  We Gay and Lesbian people are on our own and we must depend on
each other.

So, when some well meaning, or not-so well meaning straight
acquaintance of yours questions the need for a Gay Pride Day Parade,
educate the poor soul.  I'm picking up the phone to call my two
friends now.

David Nava
[email-masked]