Why Pride?

Last year I wrote that I wanted to make Pride 2009 something more than the previous Pride celebrations I'd attended.  Pride '09 was my fifth Pride celebration in Minneapolis.  While I had a fantastic time with my friends, my Pride celebration turned out to be much like the four before it.

So again, as June waits in the wings like a over-pumped diva who's had eight-too-many vodka diets, I find myself thinking about Pride.  What does Pride mean to me?  Am I proud to be gay?  Fuck yeah I am, but why does that matter anymore, in this day and age?  As time goes on Gay Pride will diminish and it'll simply be a human rights thing, not a gay rights thing.

I guess the first thing that comes to mind is paying respect to those who came before me.  I can't imagine being a gay man in the eighties or the seventies, and mostfuckingdefinitely not in the fifties or sixties.  Today I am able to walk around and be myself.  I can hold hands with my boyfriend (if I had one) in public to minimal ridicule, I can attend massive parties like Pride, I can go to gay bars without fear of being accosted as I leave, and while I can't get married in forty-five states or serve openly in the military, I enjoy a lot more freedoms than my gay brothers from twenty years ago.

So there's definitely a respect there.  I also think about myself in my early twenties ... ten years ago ... I was out and proud, and I had a lot of gay friends but I don't think I really understood what my responsibility was as a gay man.  Hell, I don't think I understand it now, at nearly 32.  Part of me feels, as a minority in this country, I have a social responsibility to progress gay rights.  Another part of me shits on the concept; I never signed up to be an activist and I just want to live my life.  Not that I've done anything that would classify me an activist.

So Pride 2010 will be my sixth consecutive Pride in Minneapolis.  Am I getting sick of being here for Pride?  Yes, mainly because I always do the same things.  I mean, hell yeah, Pride is a party.  But it should be more than that, shouldn't it?

So why Pride? I  have to say I don't really know what Pride means to me at this point.  Am I disillusioned you ask?  No I don't think so.  Jaded and bitter? Probably.  But I think that comes with age.  Most of us aren't lucky enough to be blessed with the same optimism we entered adulthood with.