Before the (Gay) Parade Passes By,

It's Gay Pride time in Miami again and of course I feel like writing my annual "angry gay" column. I've just spent an evening with several bickering homosexuals, a homosexual ally and two 14 year old girls.  The teens and I danced to gay anthems while the rest of them bickered of Gay Pride signage.  My slogans were: "Can't Pray Away the GAY" and "Fabulous by Choice, Gay by the Grace of God". There were several others as well.

That being said, I'm not going write the "angry gay" Pride column. I really want people to understand why this event is important to gay identity.  Why we do this. Is seems frivolous,  pointless even.  It's core roots forgotten and it's overt sexuality misunderstood. Why do gays want this, why do we NEED this and why it might all just go away.

At it's core it's a protest.

How do you piss off a nun? Well I know from experience, not much. However, to really anger a "moral" "God fearing Christian" you wiggle your firm male buttocks in their faces to thumping dance music. It get's them fired up, angers them, forces them to pray....pray hard. Even if you're 2000 miles away in San Francisco, your hot bod is going anger someone in Tupelo, Mississppi at the Family Research Council. Really piss them off. 

It's a protest about moral oppression. Back in the day, the Stonewall riots lasted for three days. Gays were tired of being brutalized and humiliated by police.  It's a protest about societal rules that kept gay sex hidden, in the darkness,  where someone's natural inclinations were to be ashamed of.  To the point somebody would wish you incarcerated, hospitalized or dead.  It's about taking that shame and shining it in the sunshine and say....no, I won't hide anymore, my love, my body, my person. 

This is the kind of thing that pisses off the biblicals

It's a Celebration!

The media says it, we know it. No other movement has come so far so fast. This year 2013 could be the chance that marriage equality could become real for all. In 50 years we have moved from the fringes of society. Arrested, incarcerated, institutionalized for who we were. We can serve openly in the Military! We can marry in several states! Travel companies fight for the gay dollar! 

 Soon we will the most boring neighbors with the nicest begonias and rose bushes on the block.  We will be normal! We will be like the middle class black couple down the street, seemingly out of place, but here nonetheless.  We will become one more denizen of the potpourri of American life...and it will be no big deal.

It's a Remembrance.

600,000 gay men died in the AIDS epidemic.  No other group of people outside of the Vietnam generation can understand what it's like to lose an entire generation of people.  The epidemic taught us the lesson of uniting in the face of adversity, to advocate for ourselves in the face of government oppression, to understand the we, as gays, have something unique to offer this American experience. 

There's no real account of the thousands of teens who have committed suicide because of bullying and non-supportive families. We remember them and fight for the end of intolerance and bullying. It does get better.

Parade beauty queens....that should have been me. 

It's Passe.

Maybe, maybe not.  Aren't all parades passe? When is the last time you went to a parade? All the parades are fading, St. Patrick's Day, Fourth of July, New Year's Day, Orange Bowl.....I remember when Miami had all of those. Why does Gay Pride still bring out over 30,000 people to Miami Beach.  

Younger gays are moving on.  As our battle for rights getting closer to victory, in-your-face displays of homosexual lust seem a bit 20th century. Hot muscular men writhing against each other is just one mouse click away....who needs a parade for it?

  I mean for those of us who grew up playing "smear the queer", the world has moved on to Gay-Straight Alliance clubs, sensitivity courses for bullies and real acceptance in their personal and professional lives.  Gay marriage polls at 80% for those under 30....

Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

Why keep pissing off the nun, when she's already in the Parade?

Before the parade passes by 
Before it goes on, and only I'm left 
Before the parade passes by 
I've gotta get in step while there's still time left 

I wanna hold my head up high 
I need a goal again, I need a drive again 
I wanna feel my heart coming alive again 
Before the parade passes by 

I'm gonna carry on 
Give me an old trombone 
Give me an old baton 
Before the parade passes by

Lyrics by Gerry Herman.