For the first time ever in the United States, the first time ever, some 200 or more active-duty troops and veterans, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with their branch of service, marched in a Gay pride parade.
The times are indeed changing.
Last Saturday, in San Diego's Pride parade, carrying American flags and rainbow banners, many of these active-duty troops said they were moved to come out because it is time to end the military's ban on openly gay troops.
National Guard member Nichole Herrera,\didn't think twice about marching, even though the policy is back on the books. She said she was "choked up" several times as she walked down a main thoroughfare in San Diego, a major Navy port: "This is one of the proudest days in my life. It's time for it (the policy) to be gone. I'm a soldier no matter what, regardless of my sexual orientation."
The crowds roared as the military groups walked by.
Every branch of service was represented Saturday, Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy, National Guard, even the Coast Guard, all carrying their branch's flags over their heads. People stood on the sidelines, but as the troops passed, many stepped into the streets to salute them. One man in a rainbow colored shirt waved his feather boa and yelled "Hooah!" the military battle cry.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network--representing gay and lesbian active-duty military personnel--informed organizer Sean Sala that they are warning members that it is still a risk to come out as long as "don't ask, don't tell" is on the books. But Sala, a former Navy operations specialist, said it's time for the gay and lesbian community to stop hiding in fear: "This is not in any way a violation of military policy and it's time for the country to move on - plain and simple."
Rolling slowly behind the 200 service members was a green half-ton military truck with the banner "Taking pride in our LGBT service men and women."
Walking with the group was Miranda LeClair, a former military police officer for the Navy, who carried a sign that read: "Proudly served in silence for nine years." She attended with her girlfriend, also a former member of the military police: "It's been a long time coming. This is really an emotional day for me."
LeClair was investigated under DADT in 2008 but her commanders decided not to pursue discharging her. She was one of the lucky ones.
Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Derek Collins, who has served for 11 years: "I'm so happy I'm here and I'm able to come out and support not only myself but those who can't be here today".
Marine Corporal Will Rodriguez-Kennedy is on active duty and said he looks forward to next year's parade, when he believes it will be possible to march in "dress blues": "One of my friends here has been back from Afghanistan for three days, and when he heard about the parade he said he served in uniform and he should be able to march in uniform."
Hopefully this is a trend that continues, and one day, LGBT servicemembers will march in their uniforms, like everyone else and it won't be such a big deal.
Unless it's planted on the cheek of a homophobic preacher protesting Gay Pride. Which it did....... See, up in Salisbury, North Carolina, on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Day, Joan Parker, a 74-year-old female gay rights supporter, kissed a preacher, and is now being charged with simple assault. Parker is due back in court in September, where simple assault is a misdemeanor and could bring a sentence of up to 30 days of community service for a first-time offender.
For.Kissing.A.Preacher. What would Jesus do?
Parker says the preacher man "was just waving his arms and has a Bible in one hand, up and down, and screaming at the top of his lungs, `sodomites' and `you're going to hell. I thought he needed a hug. So I gave him a hug."
And it was during that hug that the preacher, so offended at being hugged by a woman, yelled to a nearby man with a camera to photograph the "assault". That was when Parker actually assaulted him, by placing her lips on his cheek.
Of course, the perverted preacher claimed she kissed him full on the lips. "He claims I kissed him on the lips, and he's a damned liar," said Parker, who attended the Pride event with her husband to show support. "I believe I did kiss him on his cheek." The preacher, one James Edward Belcher of Taylorsville, said he never claimed Parker kissed him on the lips, but that's only because he turned his face as she came toward him. "If I hadn't turned my head, I'd have gotten it right on my mouth."
In.Your.Dreams.
Belcher says it all went down like this: "She ran her arms all the way around me and pulled me toward her." Belcher then raised his Bible high in the air and turned toward a police officer to show him the attack. he says the kiss "was just one of many attempts to silence the preaching to those in need of salvation who practice a death style that they call a lifestyle."
Oh, honey, if a kiss was enough to shut you up, I'd do it, too. And then dash off to a local hospital for a Silkwood scrubdown. God only knows where your lips have been.
It was forty-one years ago, a lifetime to some of us, a minute to others, but it marked a turning point for the LGBT community. It marked one of the first, and definitely the loudest, times that gay men and women stood up en masse and said, No. We will not be treated like this any longer!
The weekend of June 27-29,1969 began what is the modern day gay movement. To be sure, there were gay and lesbian activists before that weekend, but the confrontation between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York lit a fire in the hearts of the LGBT community like it had never been done before.
And like any good story, there is controversy surrounding the Stonewall Riots; there are arguments and differences over what happened, how it started and how it ended. But the fact we all need to remember is that it did happen, and it should continue to be a rallying cry for the LGBT community to be, finally, considered equal in the eyes of America.
It was Friday, June 27, 1969, and the world was mourning the death of Judy Garland. Could it be that the death of one of the most famous gay icons was what sparked the fire of the modern day Gay Rights Movement? Many people have speculated that Garland's death did indeed push the gay community into the streets of New York that night. But it was also hot, that night, and many say it was the heat that fueled the crowd into action, into reaction. Maybe it was both Garland's death and the hot summer night; or maybe it was just that the gay community had finally had enough of being told what to do, what not to do, and how we should live our lives. Whatever the reason, it was enough. Finally, enough.
In the early morning hours of June 28, police officers raided the Stonewall Inn, a small bar located on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. Although mafia-run, the Stonewall, like other predominantly gay bars in the city, got raided by the police periodically.
Typically, the more "deviant" patrons--drag queens and butch lesbians, especially if they were black--were arrested and taken away, while white, male customers looked on or quietly disappeared. The bar owners would be levied an insubstantial fine--a sign of corruption and collusion between bar owners and police--allowing them to open for business the following day.
On this night, the charge at the Stonewall was the illegal sale of alcohol. The raid began as they always did: plainclothes and uniformed police officers entered the bar, arrested the employees, and began ejecting the customers one by one onto the street. For some reason, however, the crowd that had gathered outside the Stonewall, a somewhat campy and festive crowd, began to cheer as the patrons were pushed out of the Stonewall Inn. But soon the mood changed; it was Judy Garland's death, or the summer heat, or the fact that the summer of 1969 was a particularly busy one for police raids on gay bars. Or maybe it was watching drag queens and lesbians being pushed and shoved and kicked into paddy wagons.
Whatever it was, the on-lookers lost their patience. No one really knows who threw the first punch; some say it was a drag queen, some say it was a rather butch-looking lesbian. But someone defied the police that night; someone had finally had enough.
The crowd, now numbering several hundred, exploded. People began hurling coins at police officers, then they moved on to rocks and bottles, whatever they could grab. The police, at first stunned that the normally docile and shamed homosexuals would react in such a fashion, soon began beating the crowds with nightsticks. This group, however,was too angry, and could not be pushed down; the police officers were forced to take refuge inside the Stonewall.
As news spread throughout Greenwich Village the crowd grew ever larger; many residents, some gay, some not, ran down to the Stonewall Inn to join the fight. Lighter fluid was squirted inside the bar and someone tried to light it; others grabbed a downed parking meter and used it as a battering ram against the front of the Stonewall. Someone began chanting "Gay Power!"
The riot-control police unit arrived to rescue the trapped officers and break up the demonstration, though it took over an hour before the crowd dispersed. To taunt their attackers a group of drag queens began to sing at the top of their lungs:
We are the Stonewall girls We wear our hair in curls We wear no underwear We show our pubic hair We wear our dungarees Above our nelly knees!
That first Stonewall Riot ended the morning of Saturday, June 28, but the fight was far from over. That night a second riot broke out and the crowd now numbered in the thousands, filling the streets in the name of Gay Pride. They marched to the Stonewall Inn and waited for the police to arrive; and they did, in the early morning hours of Sunday, June 29.
For over a week, though in smaller numbers, protests and demonstrations continued in Greenwich Village. There was finally a sense of what could be accomplished by banding together, by being out, by being seen, by being heard. By being angry. It was a new day.
A month after the riots, the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was formed. Radical and leftist, the GLF was one of many politically focused lesbian and gay organizations formed in the days and weeks following the riots. The number of lesbian and gay publications skyrocketed as well, which led to an even greater sense of community. The LGBT community was no longer strictly marginalized in United States society. Now, out and proud lesbians and gay men were developing their own communities in cities across the country.
Since 1970, marches have taken place in New York City--and all over the world--every year on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. In June 1994, hundreds of thousands of people converged on New York to celebrate Stonewall's 25th anniversary. In 1999 the United States government proclaimed the Stonewall Inn a national historic site. The following year, the status of the Stonewall was improved to "historic landmark," a designation held by only a small percentage of historical sites.
It is our Plymouth Rock. It's where the gay community landed and came together and began the march toward equality. Stonewall was our first glimpse of a new world where we weren't alone, we weren't all that different, where we belonged.
It makes no difference how it started. The death of an icon; the summer heat; a sense of frustration. It makes no difference who started it; drag queens or lesbians; coin tossers or rock throwers. The difference is that it happened.
I like clothes. I like nice clothes. But I'm not really trendy, and i don't like logos on my clothes. i don't shop at A&F, Banana Republic or Old Navy because most of their clothes appear emblazoned with the company logo. Now, my motto, well, one of my motto's, is: If you want me to be a walking billboard for your company, put me on the payroll.
Why should I promote A&F if I don't get a check? Why should I pay them to advertise them? I don't. But then Old Navy went and got all gay on me.
Word has it that Old Navy will be selling a line of Gay Pride T-shirts, with part of the proceeds going to the It Gets Better Project. Now, that's some advertising I can get behind; or into.
The shirts, for men, women, and babies--which will, no doubt, inflame the gay haters--will be available in some stores--hopefully my nearest branch--during Pride month, and 10% of the proceeds will go to Dan Savage's 'It Gets Better' campaign.
And Old Navy is taking steps where few major chain retailers go by selling these Pride shirts, though American Apparel did team up with the Human Rights Campaign to distribute its "Legalize Gay" shirts.
So, if you see me in an Old Navy, don't think I've become a shill for their clothing. I just might be showing off my Pride.
PK Weiss is a heterosexual mother of four, and the former president of Upstate Pride SC. Every year, when they celebrate Pride in the upstate, the city of Spartanburg issues a proclamation proclaiming the day in question LGBT Pride Day.
This year, however, when Weiss sent an email to the Spartanburg County Council, asking them to issue a proclamation declaring June 4, 2011 to be LGBT Day in the county, she didn't get quite the response she wanted.
The city council refused. In fact, Council Chairman Jeff "Asshat" Horton, who received the email from Weiss, responded with 'No'.
Nothing else. 'No'. No, 'Dear Ms Weiss. Just 'No'.
"There was no salutation, no closing, no thank you for the invitation. Just "no," and I thought that was rude and dismissive," said PK Weiss. The group will, however, have a march and Pride festival that day at Barnet Park in the City of Spartanburg, whose mayor did sign a proclamation.
But even more than Jeff "Asshat" Horton's simply rude, and simple, response, was the fact that he chose not to even bother asking the rest of the Spartanburg County Council. He said he didn't consult the others about the request because he has a good pulse on what they feel, and no one would have supported it. See, apparently Jeff "Asshat" Horton knows that everyone on the council is an anti-gay, homophobic, bigot, so why bother making a call and asking anyone? Or else, he's afraid they might actually approve of an LGBT Day proclamation, and this bigot wouldn't have that.
So, you know, Spartanburg, maybe the next time Jeff "Asshat" Horton comes up for reelection, or reappointment, to the council, a simple one word response from you all is what's needed.
'No.'
Failing that, I'll just say, Fuck you, Jeff Horton, and the homophobic horse you rode in on.
