Washington, DC, USA. In 1966 queer patrons in a San Francisco Tenderloin cafeteria rioted against police treatment of homosexuals.

 

Three years later Stonewall explodes. In 1970 New York holds its first Gay Pride while in San Francisco a handful of people march from Aquatic Park along Polk Street to City Hall where they held a rally. The next day a "Gay-In" was held at Speedway Meadows in Golden Gate Park. It was called "Christopher Street Liberation Day."

 

New York and San Francisco begot London and Trafalgar Park; Washington, D.C. and the block party; Sydney, Australia; Tokyo, Boston, Toronto, Rome, and Jerusalem.

 

Thus began the jumbled assemblage of parades, celebrations, queer film festivals, and suggestive tee shirts and bumper stickers that infest the earth each June. Thus began Pride Month, the unholy alliance of capitalism, government, and drag queens acting out with a sprinkling of non-profit and health organizations, equal rights campaigns and beer companies to sooth the purity of our liberally queer consciousness.
 
So, what did Stonewall bring?

 

The most publicly visible Pride event each year is a circus. The annual parade winds through city streets, past middle class crowds titillated by preening, bare buttocked leather boys and high drag girls atop rainbow floats. In between the garish displays of queer sensibilities, local and national associations march behind banners demanding equality now and the brotherhood of all our gender twisted sisters.

 

Those members of the public who line the streets see the whole spectrum of queerdom: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Not so the media. The video tape on the eleven o’clock news will eyewitness the leather boys, the naked bodies and overdone make-up and, on a good night, a few seconds of dykes on bikes. No mention of AIDS organizations, equality, or the over fifty percent of the parade composed of professional adults who happen to be queer.

 

On television and the news media, we are represented by our most outlandish extremes, the remnants of another age, another time when being queer was edgy and forbidden. In the media, we are an opportunity for a walk on the wild side in some queerly themed amusement park that is open once a year in the thirty seconds between the weather report and the sports machine.

 

This is what the public sees. This is what we have become. A festival of corporations and parties parading down main street U.S.A.

 

As for Pride month, it has become the easy political photo op to show they care. A few moments on stage, a reading of a proclamation, then back to business as usual in the halls of American politics. Premium movie channels demonstrate their commitment with a handful of critically acclaimed queer noir that are shown at such obscure late hours you need a DVR to capture them for later viewing. (Apparently the films are schedule for viewing after we return from all those late night, beer and drug filled parties.)

 

Other than the queer community and our corporate sponsors, who knows that Pride Month exists? It’s lost in the glut of Black History, Native American, Women’s, Asian, Hispanic, and Ukrainian Basket Weaver’s month that now fill our calendars. What’s the point? Who cares?

 

Yes, we have tradition (cue Tevye). Yes we need to remember Stonewall and those who came before. The parade and festival gather together more queers in one place than most of us would see in a lifetime. Undoubtedly Pride Month and the celebrations help the self esteem of those people in need of our help. And, in some areas of the world, the parades and festivals are the only time for queers to act out, safely in the arms of massed anonymity.

 

But what we mostly get is spectacle, spectacle that degrades the seriousness of equality and confirms to our opponents and the undecided that the queer community is frivolous at best and not worthy of further consideration at the worst. The spectacle, as amusing as it may be to watch, does not translate to support or political power. It only hardens the anti-gay coalitions and embarrasses our friends when they have to explain it to their grandparents.

 

We need to do better. We need to take control of our media image and not let the news organizations define us to the general public. 

 

When we gather in groups, it should be to emphasize our political and economic impact. The voting rolls contain a lot of queer names. The financial institutions hold a lot of queer money. We need to use our power.

 

The queer community needs to make the Parades and Festivals more straight friendly. They have the votes we need to change society. Without their support, we can change nothing.

 

The parades need to shift their focus away from gay males and cross dressers and place more emphasis on the entire community:

 

 

Until we shift the focus away from the party and the drugs and alcohol, Pride Month will continue to be a media circus.

 

Don’t ever confuse our annual increased visibility with our acceptance and obtainment of true political and social equality.

 

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