Photo credit: Justice and Justice Productions
The Madison Pride Parade takes place this weekend on Sunday, Aug. 19. As it happens, the date falls in the shadow of the one-year anniversary of the Neo-Nazi rally Charlottesville, Va., in which 32-year-old counter protester Heather Heyer was murdered and dozens of others injured. The Washington, D.C., commemoration of that event by retro-Third Reich brawlers failed because of a unified collation of the left.
The Pride Parade is also just days after the primary election on Tuesday, Aug. 14. Considering all of this, one would expect that, after 18 months of suffering the current regime’s hate and homophobia, the transformational power of people coming together for a communally celebrated occasion such as a LGBTQ pride event, would serve to bring diverse groups closer and unify them with a sense of common mission. Sadly, for Madison’s upcoming Pride Parade, that’s not the case.
OutReach LGBT Community Center, the parade’s organizer, announced last Friday that, aside from required police security presence, no uniformed or other contingent of any city, county or University of Wisconsin police—including MPD Pride and the Madison Police Department LGBTQ Employee Resource Group—can march in the parade itself. The decision came only a week after OutReach released a statement explaining that the MPD (Milwaukee Police Department) contingent could march in civilian clothes and without a squad car. According to Madison Police Chief Mike Koval, MPD was happy to comply and had made T-shirts for the occasion. It planned to pass out rainbow wrist bands as well. He also cited MPD’s ongoing programs to mitigate community mistrust.
Then came the revised announcement in response to certain community factions representing transgender people of color and other marginalized constituents. Because of the history of police violence against them throughout the country, they demanded a ban on any and all police presence, even as security. They threatened a boycott and asked parade supporters to withdraw their sponsorships. OutReach acquiesced accordingly. Dozens of impassioned comments posted online (largely devoid of name calling, although one equated the “T” in LGBTQ to “terrorism”) applauded or condemned the Outreach decision. Advocates cheered, invoking the Stonewall Uprising even though the half-century since has brought incredible strides in equality. Ban opponents raised their objections arguing that faith-based groups have not been barred from marching despite the continuing and aggressive anti-LGBTQ oppression by many organized religions.
Ironically, the Pride Parade ban came just days before a scheduled town hall meeting on the subject. Now, the OutReach action has created anger and frustration that may taint any semblance of mutual trust. With a pall thrown over not only the meeting but the Pride Parade itself, the mood can hardly be conciliatory and geared to finding consensus. Suddenly, the consequences of the OutReach decision will have to be part of the equation.
The irony cannot be lost on any observer that the Madison community center’s “OutReach” moniker has been turned into its opposite. The banning of the police just days after accepting them not only divides the LGBTQ community but further alienates those who should be welcomed in the spirit of outreach. Faced with the divide-and-conquer tactics our enemies so gleefully pursue, by blithely indulging the divisions in our community, we’re doing their work for them.
