Pride Guide 2001 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

C-3

March in the Pride parade, but for the right reason

by Michael Alvear

Watching a Pride march is like watching Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell and Gary Bauer go over the Grand Canyon in your new convertible.

On the one hand you get to see freaks go over the edge. On the other hand, it comes at a tremendous personal sacrifice.

Pride marches went over the cliff a few years ago when we decided all that crap about rights and equality was cutting into our partying. In the early years, going to Pride was an admirable, courageous act, the equivalent of going on a firewalk.

Today, Pride marches are more like freak shows than rites of passage, and bad ones at

Pride is earned when you don't let go of your boyfriend's hand.

that. My biggest beef against them isn't that they suck (although they do-I've seen better floats in high school homecoming parades) or that they tear down everything we work for (we act out every offensive stereotype we spent the past year trying to break down).

No, my biggest beef against Pride marches is that they celebrate the wrong thing-being gay. Why? Because there's nothing intrinsically good about being gay. For every Walt Whitman there's a Roy Cohn. For every Elton John there's a Jeffrey Dahmer. For every gay hero there's a gay asshole.

If we're going to celebrate anything, it should be the way we handle being gay. Like surviving it, for starters.

There is no other group in America— none—that is so systematically and publicly attacked by society. From birth to death we're constantly faced with the threat of abandonment, isolation, even physical attacks from friends, strangers, teammates, families and churches.

Things have improved dramatically but we still live in a society that bares its fangs at us every chance it gets. And you just never know whether it's a pose or a poise to strike. Ask Judy Shepard.

You can't live under those conditions without it profoundly affecting you.

The real source of pride in our lives isn't that we're gay; it's that we're survivors. Our survival is a testament to our resiliency, our character, not our gayness.

For those of us who faced the sometimesmortal danger of being different and didn't turn to the bottle, a razor or a fake marriage there is real reason to celebrate, real reason for pride. We've kept our humanity in the face of brutality. We've learned how to bloom in barren soil.

GLSEN

Cleveland

Michael Alvear

In straight life, heroism is a usually a onetime phenomenon. A dangerous event happens once and the hero rises to the occasion with strength and courage. In gay life, the dangerous event happens over and over and over again. Every day somebody says they hate fags. Every day some church wants to excommunicate us. Every day the military wants to banish us.

Every day some parent throws their gay kid out the door.

Like most gay people, my life is filled with the opportunity for fear to flourish. Cowardice and heroism are wings that beat simultaneously, jerking me in one direction and then another. The times I am heroic I'm quite clear that I'm not forging a gay identity; I'm forging human character.

And that's what we should be celebrating at Pride-character. Not homosexuality. Selfesteem isn't built by wearing buttless chaps at an all-gay event straight people won't attend. It's bringing a male date to the company picnic. Pride isn't forged because you sit in the back of a convertible wearing a dress. It's earned when you don't let go of your boyfriend's hand, even when you see straight people coming. Self-respect doesn't come because you flash your tits to a drunken crowd. It comes from telling that nice lady sitting next to you on the plane the real reason why some girl hasn't snatched you up yet.

A lowered voice, a hand unclasped, a fact omitted these are the words and gestures that make up the language of being gay. A raised voice, a hand clasped, a fact clearly stated these are the words and gestures that make up the language of being a hero. Celebrating our gayness is like congratulating grass for being green. Celebrating our heroism, now that's worth a parade. ✓

Michael Alvear lives with Zoey and Zack, his lesbian Labrador and girlie-boy Vizsla. He can be reached at mikealvear(@aol.com

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