GAY PRIDE PARADES: ¿DO WE STILL NEED THEM?

As Gay Pride season
comes to an end, we often look back at the legendary uprising at Greenwich
Village's now-historic Stonewall Inn. It was there that brave men and women
raised up their hands and fists and said, "No more!" People were
tired of being harassed, tired of being corralled and led away in shame and
dishonor, tired of being treated like second-class citizens.

When the Stonewall was raided shortly after midnight on June 28,
1969, a group of gay men, lesbians, drag queens, street youth, hustlers and
more fought back against the police. They used coins, bricks, garbage, bottles
and their voices to tell the "authorities" to step the fuck back.

Two years later, the first Gay Pride parades took place in Los Angeles and New York and have spread to cities large and small the
world over. But after 40 years, do we still need to gather in the streets in
our capitals and small towns to tell the world, "We're here. We're
queer..."? Ah, you know the rest.

It's an interesting concept, the "pride parade." Whether
it's to show Puerto Rican pride, Irish pride, American pride or Gay Pride,
people want to gather in the streets each year to say, "Hell yeah, this is
who I am and I love it!" But do annual Gay Pride parades still have the
same objectives and reach the same goals today as they did 20 —or even 10—years
ago? The gay community has made major strides in the last decade. We have
representatives in politics, entertainment, sports, science and academics, and
we are allowed to get married or have a civil union in dozens of countries and
a number of U.S. states. Yet we still have a ways to go before we truly have
equality.

When you think about Pride in your town or city, what first comes to mind? Is it the riots
that started our gay liberation? Is it the political factions who helped us get
where we are? Perhaps it's the companies that supported our rights to work
alongside straight people and get the same benefits. Or do you just think about how messed up you're going to get while
watching hot, buff, gyrating go-go boys toss beads your way?

However you
view your Pride, you can't deny we got to this place today by the support and
help of a lot of people. Whether you were in the trenches fighting or benefited
from those actions, each summer we come together to remember how we got here.

But why can't we do this every
day? There is plenty of dissension within our community—gay men who hate
lesbians (and vice versa), homos who
hate drag queens, gay people who think the trans "T" people should be
removed from the LGBT, racism among gays, and more. Indeed, these kinds of
feelings should make us all take pause and ask what it is we're proud of. If
each of us takes a step back and thinks about it, we can remember something in
each of our lives that makes us proud to be gay. But is it because of some political victory, a civil rights issue, a
politician or company, or a big fat party?

Yes, there are many ways to show Gay Pride. Just make sure you do
something on one of the other 364 days of the year as well.