FLOTSAM AND JETSAM: GAY PRIDE

My lover, R.S., invited me to go with him to Boston's Gay Pride Parade. He and I had attended this event several years ago and I remembered it as being more like a circus than the seat of the culture war that it symbolizes in todays overheated politico/religious debates.

It was a gorgeous late spring day. (this was june 2004)  We met at South Station, our usual point of contact, before heading up to Tremont Street and cutting across the Boston Common to situate ourselves at a good vantage point among the crowd that was already lining both sides of Boylston Street.

The collective atmosphere was buoyant. It could have been the crowd at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade without the coats. There were families, white haired, well-dressed, Boston Brahmins from Beacon Hill and lots and lots of young people of all colors and stripes. The sidewalks and curbs of Boylston Street were overflowing when the first band rounded the corner with GAY PRIDE banners flying.

The wedding theme was big this year with many recently married couples (Massachusetts was the first, and only state to legally declare that gay folks had the freedom to marry) in full bridal regalia, sitting atop open convertibles and floats, beaming, throwing beads (ala Mardi Gras New Orleans style) and flowers and condoms at the cheering crowd. There were bikers, lots of bikers, adoptive gay parents with their kids on their shoulders and dogs by their side. There were hetero parents marching with their openly gay adult or teenage children, but the most surprising to me were the number of religious groups, churches and synagogues, congregations of many denominations whose members were marching in the name of tolerance, love, and acceptance. This I thought is what religion should be all about. Not in the business of inflicting pain, fear, hate and retribution as the Catholic Church and other conservative religious communities have been doing as long as I can remember. If anything this parade only highlighted the hypocrisy of "The Church" when it comes to preaching about "God's Love". With 30%-40% of all Catholic priests, by some counts, under charges of sexual misconduct, usually of a homosexual or pedofile nature, one can only shake their head and wonder how they (the offical "Church")can continue to wield such power over so many. Perhaps blind stupidity explains it.

As R.S. snapped away with his new digital camera, I fought with my film based, auto-wind point and shoot. I thought I had gotten some great shots but the film was not advancing. It seemed like an historic moment and I'd wanted a record to show my daughter and grandaughter. This was the only bummer in an otherwise super-fine day.

It seemed there were as many people marching as watching. I was amazed when the contingent of openly gay, uniformed members of the Boston Police Officers Association marched with dignity down the middle of the broad, sun-drenched boulevard. That's when it dawned on me that there were no counter-protestors to be seen. No fights with religious zealots, no cops in riot gear ready to unleash their attack dogs on the crowd. I glanced over my shoulder only to see 3 uniformed Boston Park Police, sitting on horseback, chatting and smiling under the shade trees of the Boston Garden.

The parade was long and there was much interaction between those on the sidewalk and those marching. We were ALL unified by a sense of our mutual humanity. I have not been as hopeful for the future of America in a long, long, time.

As the parade wound down the crowd was slow to disperse as though we were all savoring the moment. There were tents set up on the Boston Common where vendors sold food and some groups who had marched, like AIDS awareness and other health agencies, set up information about their charity work or political views. R.S. and I passed the tents and went back to his studio to enjoy the afterglow of our days experience.

My bubble of pride at being from Massachusetts got pricked a few days later when images of our attractive but slimy Republican Governor, Mitt Romney, appeared on the cover of the Boston Globe. He had gone before congress to tell how his renegade state would bring down all of western society as we know it unless a ban on Gay marriage is written into our countries constitution. Of course when he was actually running for governor of the most liberal state in the union, he said something quite different.

Romney's got it all wrong. He knows it but he is banking on the belief that the worst elements of human nature will prevail and his stand will help his stature on the national political stage. Well Mitt - I say don't bother coming home to Massachusetts. Stay in Washington where you belong. In this state at least we've come a long way baby - and we've left you behind in the dust bin of history.