Well, we caught some of the Parade on TV today, and, you know, it was nice.

I found myself recalling thoughts in years past that I should be there; I should be supporting the community. I thought of how much fun I had the first and only year I went (I don't feel entirely comfortable in crowds of any kind, I really don't). I thought of other years in which I didn't go, but wrote and published soul-searching feature-length essays ("Black Elk") instead.

There's a New Yorker cartoon on our fridge; I can't make out the artist's signature. Depicted are two middle-aged males reposing on the couch, reading the newspapers, sipping the morning coffee. The caption reads,

"We're not doing anything for Gay Pride this year. We're here, we're queer, and we're used to it."

There you have it: "we're used to it." We are; we're comfortable with it. We really enjoy living in a local culture that makes it easy to enjoy being yourself.

Is that all there is to it?

No. Parade organizers this year wanted to make the event more "political". They chose to make the late Harvey Milk an honorary Queen of the parade. I would like to except a short passage from the Time magazine "TIME 100 Polls":

There was a time when it was impossible for people--straight or gay--even to imagine a Harvey Milk. The funny thing about Milk is that he didn't seem to care that he lived in such a time. After he defied the governing class of San Francisco in 1977 to become a member of its board of supervisors, many people--straight and gay--had to adjust to a new reality he embodied: that a gay person could live an honest life and succeed.

I remember such a time. We owe a lot to Harvey Milk.

2003 was the year Canada legalized gay marriage. This was the year the Supreme Court shot down the anti-gay Texas sodomy law. (Yes, wasn't Scalia's guiding principle, "this could lead to gay marriage", disgustingly transparent?)

This was also the year and month that Strom Thurmond died, at 100, after a 70 year reign as patriarch of the zealot/patriot fundamentalist agenda. One by one, the old icons of hate and bigotry are falling.

"Minority: a class of people seeking classification as people." -- Alex Forbes

I wrote that one for my random quotes engine about ten years ago. It's still one of my personal favorites. This is a good day to give thanks to the people who worked for, and died for, the right of gay men and women to live out our lives as normal citizens.

Most of us will never be elected to a board of supervisors. Most of us do not march in the parade, whether because we've been there, or live too far away, or just had things on the schedule for today. Most of us lead very busy lives earning a productive living and trying to save for the future, and it could be said little of that time and effort ever does directly back into our community.

Taking myself only for the sake of example, it could be said that I could do more for the gay community, if only by becoming more active in it.

It's true, I worked in the community in years past, as a peer group facilitator for the Pacific Center. Now I annually donate more than feels comfortable, instead; they keep putting out feelers about meeting their board of directors, and I keep avoiding it. That's "politics", and I don't have the political good sense to say the appropriate thing that appeals to a consensus when that conflicts with what I think is right.

I do run a website with an openly gay directory, this one, La Parola. Today, news that impacts the gay community is widely read, accurately reported, and largely expected by the gay community, if not the general community at large. There are fewer surprises. La Parola urgently demands less and less of my time.

When I came out, few in that world of that time had even met a gay person, and known it. That's the biggest change of all.

In being neighbors and in going to work as who we are, in producing durable work of top or even exceptional quality, and in leading our peers (of whatever orientation) toward a more productive and therefore enjoyable environment, we are doing in our own way, and with our numbers, exactly what a tiny minority of pioneers like Harvey Milk wanted us to do in 1977.

And so we give thanks to Harvey Milk and the many minority pioneers who made it possible. I think, if Harvey Milk were still able to lead this parade in person, instead of in memoriam, he would have given thanks that we all did exactly what we did.

It worked, and it's getting better. The quality of life has improved. We can lead an honest life and succeed. I hope you enjoyed the Parade today. I certainly did.

a Talking Crow Production

© Alex Forbes, La Parola June 29, 2003