Pride Month
Pride Weekend is underway in New York City. On a walk through the Chelsea Strip, sunny good cheer is as evident as biceps in tank tops as women, men and all genders in between enjoy the simple, profound pleasure of a summertime walk in the sunshine. Pride Gear is on display in almost every window, from dog tags (woof woof) to armbands (yes, sir!), from belts to bandanas. In the card store, Pride rightfully gets its own section, from greeting cards to votive cups, from Pride flags waving everywhere to Pride Guides there for the taking. One street vendor offers this year's set of must-move dance mixes, while another calmly dips out gay ice cream. Through the whole glorious tangle of sunshine and rainbows, friends and family -- which we LGBTQ people understand is not limited to us, but which we also reserve the right to claim primacy for should we so choose - are just happy; and that is appropriate for a Pride that is Gay.
While the hugs and rainbows are important, even more important is to remember that we have them due to those who preceded us, whose journeys were not drenched in the sunshine of freedom but who fought for it both for their own survival and in hopes, when they dared hope, of a better future. The sunny month of June is celebrated as Pride Month in recognition of the Stonewall Riots, which were the result of very dark times indeed. In the 1960s, the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village was the only club in New York City where people of the same sex were allowed to dance together. New York City law and the cops who enforced it was a wall of arcane rules (some of which referred to Prohibition but many of which pre-dated it), corruption and bigotry. At the Stonewall, ways around this included an absence of running water behind the counter, meaning that the space was not technically a bar but a "bottle club," and an entry protocol complete with passwords and grift. But no GLBT social gathering spot was completely safe, and that included the Stonewall.
Police raids on same sex establishments were common. During a raid, as soon as the tip off arrived, all club lights were extinguished and white lights turned on as a cue to the attendees that a raid was eminent. Anyone who couldn't escape struggled to find their identification and do what they could to adjust their appearance if they were presenting as too butch or too femme to pass the police line-up that was about to happen. At 1:20 am on June 28, 1969, eight cops showed up backed with four undercover officers who had penetrated the club earlier that night and a Public Morals Squad who was waiting outside. However, instead of complaisance, those cops and their supporters encountered resistance, including a gathering storm of outrage from the crowd that had been hanging out in Christopher Street Park. Though accounts vary of when resistance turned into action, authenticated accounts credit one such moment as being when a butch-identified woman was brutalized as she was led, cuffed, to the paddy wagon.
While Stonewall was the first great public outcry in the war for LGBTQ civil rights, it was not an organized effort but a spontaneous one. LGBT organizations already existed, and the passion and action of such as the Mattachine Society, the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance are an important part of our history and must be acknowledged. I've written before that John is a Stonewall baby, and when Stonewall turned 25 John celebrated the same birthday with the honor of being the videographer for the GAA reunion and their Pride march. When John and I were young gay men, a former GAA activist mentored us. His guidance, experience and conviction that it was not even open to debate whether LGBT people deserved the same civil rights as everyone else played a crucial role as the LGBT civil rights movement proceeded into the 1970s and 1980s, and in John's and my relationship as young gay men as we strode with backwards baseball caps and pink triangles into the 1990s.
Last year at this time, LGBTQ civil rights took a serious stride forward as New York became the most populous state to legalize same sex marriage. That historic legislation was, in many ways, an homage to everyone who fought for civil rights for all citizens, both in public and -- also to be acknowledged -- private. For everyone who advocated publicly, there was someone who contributed to the fight through the simple, profound act of authentically living their life. If that doesn't resonate with readers of a lifestyle blog, especially one that concentrates on the sacredness of the daily act, and acts, of living, then I don't know what would.
I had been writing and tweeting about our marriage plans so as the process progressed, the contemporary gathering place of social media was a part of that. We had a city hall wedding and in true social media form, we checked in on Foursquare and that fed into Facebook. People started responding through all of the media with nothing but support. Kat, who with her husband were among the attendants, was sending photos and tweets and Facebook updates, and so were we, and frankly we were so happy that if the New York Times still had the ticker on Times Square I'd have announced on that social media, too. On the day of, we both changed our status to married, and yes, when the man-woman icon came up, that gave us a start. We were happy and that took precedence, but it was a reminder of the fact that society wasn't one hundred percent there with a same sex marriage. When you're gay you get used to this kind of thing and again, how happy we were took precedence, but it's impossible not to notice that it happened, and not to know that the fact that it happened means something.
As someone who has directly benefitted from the legislation, I can confirm the importance of the fact of being married. But I think there’s an additional dimension to the success of same sex marriage in New York State. I think that overall, New Yorkers are proud to be citizens of a state leading the vanguard of marriage equality by the simple act of making it so. Any state that grants marriage equity rights is simply doing the right thing. John and I have been together through 21 years and during that time, we have navigated and given names to things that many couples don't yet even know exist. At the celebration luncheon, all of dear friends -- for the record, attendants at our wedding were heterosexual married couples -- stated that we taught them how to be married. One wrote that our wedding was "the best thing I have ever seen." Words cannot express how important that day was to me, nor can they contain how I treasure the support we received live and online.
Readers of Urban Home Blog know that John and I split our time between New York and California. This year, were in Los Angeles for LA Pride and New York City for New York City Pride. In California, same sex marriage was legal but was repealed by voter referendum. At the CSW pride rally earlier this month, the NOH8 initiative (against Prop 8) was in full force. This weekend before traveling to California to be with John, I will attend a luncheon where the speaker will be the Honorable Micah Kellner, one of the New York State assembly members who was instrumental in passing marriage equality. His story, and his support of mine and John's marriage*, reminds us that Pride is a rich mine of vital stories about American lives. And that ties in with the Pride month sunshine with which this column began. For the colors in the rainbow flag that is the symbol of LGBTQ America are a breakout of the prism that creates light and makes possible the simple, vital acts of sight and vision.
*(NOTE: when I deplaned at LAX after attending this luncheon, I had received a tweet from the Assembly Member. He wished John and me mazel tov on our marriage).
While the hugs and rainbows are important, even more important is to remember that we have them due to those who preceded us, whose journeys were not drenched in the sunshine of freedom but who fought for it both for their own survival and in hopes, when they dared hope, of a better future. The sunny month of June is celebrated as Pride Month in recognition of the Stonewall Riots, which were the result of very dark times indeed. In the 1960s, the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village was the only club in New York City where people of the same sex were allowed to dance together. New York City law and the cops who enforced it was a wall of arcane rules (some of which referred to Prohibition but many of which pre-dated it), corruption and bigotry. At the Stonewall, ways around this included an absence of running water behind the counter, meaning that the space was not technically a bar but a "bottle club," and an entry protocol complete with passwords and grift. But no GLBT social gathering spot was completely safe, and that included the Stonewall.
Police raids on same sex establishments were common. During a raid, as soon as the tip off arrived, all club lights were extinguished and white lights turned on as a cue to the attendees that a raid was eminent. Anyone who couldn't escape struggled to find their identification and do what they could to adjust their appearance if they were presenting as too butch or too femme to pass the police line-up that was about to happen. At 1:20 am on June 28, 1969, eight cops showed up backed with four undercover officers who had penetrated the club earlier that night and a Public Morals Squad who was waiting outside. However, instead of complaisance, those cops and their supporters encountered resistance, including a gathering storm of outrage from the crowd that had been hanging out in Christopher Street Park. Though accounts vary of when resistance turned into action, authenticated accounts credit one such moment as being when a butch-identified woman was brutalized as she was led, cuffed, to the paddy wagon.
While Stonewall was the first great public outcry in the war for LGBTQ civil rights, it was not an organized effort but a spontaneous one. LGBT organizations already existed, and the passion and action of such as the Mattachine Society, the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance are an important part of our history and must be acknowledged. I've written before that John is a Stonewall baby, and when Stonewall turned 25 John celebrated the same birthday with the honor of being the videographer for the GAA reunion and their Pride march. When John and I were young gay men, a former GAA activist mentored us. His guidance, experience and conviction that it was not even open to debate whether LGBT people deserved the same civil rights as everyone else played a crucial role as the LGBT civil rights movement proceeded into the 1970s and 1980s, and in John's and my relationship as young gay men as we strode with backwards baseball caps and pink triangles into the 1990s.
Last year at this time, LGBTQ civil rights took a serious stride forward as New York became the most populous state to legalize same sex marriage. That historic legislation was, in many ways, an homage to everyone who fought for civil rights for all citizens, both in public and -- also to be acknowledged -- private. For everyone who advocated publicly, there was someone who contributed to the fight through the simple, profound act of authentically living their life. If that doesn't resonate with readers of a lifestyle blog, especially one that concentrates on the sacredness of the daily act, and acts, of living, then I don't know what would.
I had been writing and tweeting about our marriage plans so as the process progressed, the contemporary gathering place of social media was a part of that. We had a city hall wedding and in true social media form, we checked in on Foursquare and that fed into Facebook. People started responding through all of the media with nothing but support. Kat, who with her husband were among the attendants, was sending photos and tweets and Facebook updates, and so were we, and frankly we were so happy that if the New York Times still had the ticker on Times Square I'd have announced on that social media, too. On the day of, we both changed our status to married, and yes, when the man-woman icon came up, that gave us a start. We were happy and that took precedence, but it was a reminder of the fact that society wasn't one hundred percent there with a same sex marriage. When you're gay you get used to this kind of thing and again, how happy we were took precedence, but it's impossible not to notice that it happened, and not to know that the fact that it happened means something.
As someone who has directly benefitted from the legislation, I can confirm the importance of the fact of being married. But I think there’s an additional dimension to the success of same sex marriage in New York State. I think that overall, New Yorkers are proud to be citizens of a state leading the vanguard of marriage equality by the simple act of making it so. Any state that grants marriage equity rights is simply doing the right thing. John and I have been together through 21 years and during that time, we have navigated and given names to things that many couples don't yet even know exist. At the celebration luncheon, all of dear friends -- for the record, attendants at our wedding were heterosexual married couples -- stated that we taught them how to be married. One wrote that our wedding was "the best thing I have ever seen." Words cannot express how important that day was to me, nor can they contain how I treasure the support we received live and online.
Readers of Urban Home Blog know that John and I split our time between New York and California. This year, were in Los Angeles for LA Pride and New York City for New York City Pride. In California, same sex marriage was legal but was repealed by voter referendum. At the CSW pride rally earlier this month, the NOH8 initiative (against Prop 8) was in full force. This weekend before traveling to California to be with John, I will attend a luncheon where the speaker will be the Honorable Micah Kellner, one of the New York State assembly members who was instrumental in passing marriage equality. His story, and his support of mine and John's marriage*, reminds us that Pride is a rich mine of vital stories about American lives. And that ties in with the Pride month sunshine with which this column began. For the colors in the rainbow flag that is the symbol of LGBTQ America are a breakout of the prism that creates light and makes possible the simple, vital acts of sight and vision.
*(NOTE: when I deplaned at LAX after attending this luncheon, I had received a tweet from the Assembly Member. He wished John and me mazel tov on our marriage).
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