Photo Credit: Jean-Gabriel Fernandez
The rainbow crosswalk at Cathedral Square.
Since the Stonewall Uprising in 1969, over the course the past two decades in particular, there have been monumental strides made in the struggle for LGBTQ rights. So much has changed for the better. The end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and marriage equality under the Obama administration were salient moments in our quest for equality. The community’s political aspirations have been realized as well. The successful elections of dozens of LGBTQ candidates across the spectrum of offices and, at the federal level, the appointments of gay man Pete Buttigieg Secretary of Transportation and a transwoman, Dr. Rachel Levine, as Assistant Secretary of Health reflect a level achievement that was once unthinkable.
In light of the progress of LGBTQ equality, the arrival of June as Pride Month inevitably reignites the debate about the merits of Pride and how it ought to be celebrated. There are essentially three schools of thought.
There’s the party crowd. With an obligatory (albeit oblivious) nod to Stonewall, it embraces Pride as corporately underwritten bacchanalia of dance and head-liner entertainment, a month-long St. Patrick’s Day on steroids (as well as other party favors) and cheap beer. Ironically, back in 2011 Milwaukee PrideFest planners were more concerned with the radical queers protesting corporatized Pride and storming the gates than with the quaint West Allis Nazis marching against gays in general across the street.
Over the Rainbow?
Some factions are simply over the rainbow. They’re satisfied with assimilation and appropriation of heteronormativity. For them, marriage equality, LGBTQ characters on sitcoms, those political types among us and Pride itself are all well and good but now it’s time to cool our queer jets and simply blend into that insipid straight trope of the nuclear family somewhere between a Norman Rockwell painting and a SNL skit.
I recently saw an opinion piece claiming that leather fetish and the BDSM scene followers should no longer be represented at Pride events so as not to offend. Drag queens or Dykes on Bikes might be next. It would be a return to those days when, back in the pre-Stonewall 1960s, gays and lesbians peacefully picketing for a modicum of acceptance and their basic human rights were instructed to dress in proper attire to make a positive impression—so, jackets and ties for the gents and skirts of modest length for the gals. In other words, don’t look queer, look like them, like straight people, so we appear “normal”.
Then are those (your writer included ) who believe the party may be premature and that Pride should not only recognize the hard fought struggle for equality but actively continue it. The last four years of homophobic hate under the other guy and his regime are enough to buttress that school of thought.
Interestingly, Kellogg’s recent release of its “All Together” Pride cereal promotion in collaboration with GLAAD incited the Catholic organization American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) to launch a petition against the cereal. It claimed the “pro-homosexual agenda is rearing its ugly head in your children’s cereal” and anointed the breakfast of diverse champions “sickening and perverted.”
Mind you, if anything, with all the frilly frocks, rearing heads in extravagant brocade chapeaux and ethereal choir music, taking your kids to a Catholic mass might accomplish more to tip their gay scale than slurping down a bowl of rainbow tinted cereal ever would. And, to be frank, I’ve always figured the twink trio Snap, Crackle and Pop, the affable muscly Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam (Froot Loops? Come on…) were gay anyway.
Don’t Trivialize Hate
Of course, the TFP reaction just seems silly ultimately. Still, it’s not the time to be trivializing hate, however ridiculous its manifestation. With recent reports that 25% of Republicans believe in QANON and over 50% think the Biden presidency is fraudulent, and with red states, including our own purplish one, pursuing voter suppression laws, the momentary respite in our democracy’s political fortunes may be a brief one. Marathon County’s recent episode with its board of supervisors’ rejection of a resolution declaring the county’s embrace of inclusivity and diversity is certainly indicative of that.
“PrideFest is for us”, a friend once proudly said. By extension, Pride Month, is for us. However, as I’ve said before, we can’t be that crowd reveling in the Cabaret, ignoring the world convulsing outside.
Happy Pride!
