What Pride Means To Me

                This week was an overwhelming testament that fighting for one's rights does eventually pay off. With the repeal of DOMA I finally felt my country recognized me as an individual. I cried for awhile and silently wished my friends who were taken to soon could of been here this day. I know many friends were smiling down embracing all in the great big tea dance in the sky.
 
                  I remember the first time I realized I could say with great pride I was a gay male. I went to my first GLYNY (GAYLESBIANYOUTHNEWYORK) meeting in NYC in the late fall of 1983. I was among peers who felt the way I did and could understand my feelings. I did not attend my first gay pride march until 1985 or 86 ( I'm sketchy on this) and the evening before Pride Day I represented GLYNY in a candlelit vigil that started at Sheridan Square at the beginning of a beautiful NYC summer evening. I held this amazing wreath of flowers in lavender and white and opposite me was a member of SAGE(Senior Advocacy for G/L Elders) with another wreath, I think he was the receptionist of GMHC on the 2nd floor of the community center on West 13th. The square was packed with press,news cameras and the participants of the march. The participants were given either a white balloon for those lost and lavender for those afflicted and a candle tied to those balloons. The procession started and made its way down Christopher Street towards the Hudson. The participants were very quiet and that could be heard was the sound of footsteps and some crying. I was among many men and women who where linked together by the bond of the gay and lesbian community. The street was packed sidewalk to sidewalk full of participants and onlookers peering from rooftops,bar windows and apartment windows...we had made are way to Houston (I think) where there was a platform set up for special guests and speakers. I turned to look up Christopher and was struck numb with the silence of the masses and the beauty of the balloons and candlelight as it cast beautiful shadows among the vigil participants.

                  The vigil started with its speakers and I stood in front of the dais and held the wreath ,which now was starting to feel its weight. I listened and watched as photographers took photos of the crowd which was still parading down from Sheridan Square. The speakers finished and at that time names were to be randomly called from the crowd and the names started to fill the sky with voices of those they left behind..."David Hoffman" I called out ( a friend who passed in 83 back in Wisconsin) and the tears flowed and I could not stop as the names became louder and the grief almost unbearable at the voices of parents,brothers,sisters,grandparents,aunts,uncles,sons,daughters,friends and partners filled the sky with their loved ones names. I was then approached by an elderly woman in a very beautiful Chanel Suit and she held my arm and wiped my eyes with a scented handkerchief and stayed by my side and then she said her sons name Stefan...and with time I forget that last name...she kissed my cheek and left my side an went back into the crowd.

                 The vigil then preceded down to the Hudson and the clergy were there to say some words and the wreath was taken from me and a white balloon and candle given to me and then I watched as the balloons where told to be released and watched as the sky above Christopher Street was lit with the orange glow of candles and the balloons drifted into the night like Miss Havisham into her ballroom. My tears seemed to cleanse me of this emotional evening and I found myself numb and yet proud of the strength of the gay and lesbian community.  

                I watched the skyline and realized with as much as we were grieving with the loss of our brothers and sisters we were uniting as family and the strength was a force which has build in ferocity that celebrated this past week with the repeal of DOMA.

                So to some this may seem a shoving of the gay agenda down ones throat but to me it is this country's acknowledgement that the defensive marriage act was unconstitutional. It is a chance for me to go to a wedding of a friend and not cry thinking this will never happen to my community. It now means we do not have to refer to ourselves as community because we are now considered equal. We still have mountains to climb but this was the Everest which needed to be conquered first.This really is not a gay issue this is an issue about my civil rights as a citizen of the United States and the world. It is time to quit the argument that this is a gay issue...this is an issue with the ignorant who wish to push their beliefs into my life and claim they are 100% in the know that this is how the country feels.

                 No one can take away that feeling from me when I held a friends marriage license and I was looking at a piece of history...one of these days I may be holding my own and my friends and family who have passed will weep for me, and the tears will fall from the heavens and create over the horizon a palette of hues that will create a one of a kind rainbow and I will say "I do".  I will live happily ever after with the the trials of everyday life with the man I love who I will be able to say is my husband.
   
                 PEACE*HOPE*LOVE